


Febuwhump 2021: Avengers Edition

by usa123



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awesome Laura Barton, Badass Natasha Romanoff, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Sam Wilson, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanoff Recovering, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Team as Family, Undercover Missions, Visions in dreams, collapsing buildings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29149206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usa123/pseuds/usa123
Summary: Prompt fills for Febuwhump 2021.Day 2:I Can't Take This Anymore (Time Loop 1/2). Bucky can't prevent Steve's death.Day 8:Hey, This Is No Time To Sleep. Post-Endgame, Sam has a vision of a familiar face.Day 9:Buried Alive (1/2). A bank collapses on Steve and Tony.Day 10:I'm Sorry. I Didn't Know. Post-defecting to SHIELD, Natasha is triggered by an everyday object.Day 13:Hiding Injury (Buried Alive 2/2). One of the Avengers is hiding a serious injury.Day 17:Field Surgery. Clint invites Steve to his farm for a relaxing weekend, which doesn't go as planned.Day 18:I Can't See. Clint goes missing. Natasha will stop at nothing to find him.Day 20:Betrayal. On an op, Clint worries Steve's grasp on reality is slipping.Day 23:Don't Look. Natasha and team fight to rescue a little girl from Hydra's clutches.Day 24:Memory Loss. Post-TWS, the asset goes to the Smithsonian.Day 26:Recovery (Time Loop 2/2). An injured blond tries to convince the asset it's worth saving.Day 27:I Wish I'd Never Given You A Chance. Sam, Bucky and Sharon escort Zemo to trial.Day 28:You Have To Let Me Go. Steve is the only thing keeping Tony from falling to his death.
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151156
Comments: 28
Kudos: 58





	1. Day 2: "I Can't Take This Anymore" (Time Loop Part 1 of 2)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Febuwhump 2021! I will be filling the prompts in four fandoms— _Supergirl_ , _Timeless_ , MCU/Avengers and _Stranger Things_ —and will be posting one work for each fandom filled with only the chapters that belong to that fandom.
> 
> A full list of prompts is available on febuwhump's Tumblr, or on my own ([usaOneTwoThree](https://usaonetwothree.tumblr.com/)) under the [#febuwhump tag](https://usaonetwothree.tumblr.com/search/febuwhump). On my Tumblr, there's also my finalized plan for the month if you want to look ahead.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2: "I Can't Take This Anymore" (Time Loop Part 1 of 2). Bucky gets stuck in a time loop, each day unable to prevent Steve's death.

It never happened the same way, but it always happened.

At the end of the day, by midnight, Steve was dead, Bucky having failed to save him.

He'd lost count of how many days this had gone on for. At least fifty.

In those days, Steve had been electrocuted, shot, drowned, bit by the rarest and deadliest animal in the world, had his throat slit, a piano fall on him, a fatal allergic reaction, went septic after a paper cut, slipped in the shower, and was poisoned (at least three different ways). He'd also fallen out of the Avenjet, had his skull caved in by a tree branch, was blown up, killed instantly in a car crash, crushed under the weight of a bank, burned alive, and strangled. His heart had given out, he'd had an aneurysm, and at least four times, he'd just died with no explanation.

Nothing Bucky did helped. He kept Steve in the Tower all day (heart gave out), took him out and about (piano), went out on a mission (tortured, electrocuted, waterboarded, then shot), got him on a plane (which he'd been sucked out of when the tail sheared off), drove across town (car crash), went boating (drowned).

Early on, he'd gone to Tony, who had believed him, and helped him look for a solution. Very quickly, Bucky had gotten the explanation down to a science: the exact number of words he needed to say to get Tony to believe him measured and perfected.

And still, Steve died. Again and again and again.

Tony had consulted Bruce, Reed Richards, Helen Cho, with no viable solution for saving Steve's life.

This wasn't like _Groundhog's Day_ , where there was something Bucky had done wrong and needed to fix. The day before, the team had gone on a mission that had been successful and wrapped up almost without any injuries (Clint had whacked his shin against a small stool before Tony had found a light switch). The target was, for once, a genuinely bad guy with no redeeming qualities, and to top it all off, he had been saved: arrested alive and uninjured to stand trial for his crimes.

The rest of the day had just been hanging out in the Tower, enjoying a scant bit of peace before the next mission.

Each new day was wearing on Bucky, worse than the nightmares he'd had while breaking free of his Soldier conditioning. _Those_ had been planted in his brain to keep him compliant. _These_ iterations of Steve's death were real, for whatever real was anymore.

Today, when he woke up to find himself staring at the same white ceiling, in the same room, with the same book on his bedside, bookmark inserted at page seventy-two, he couldn't do it.

"Buck?" Steve asked a few hours later, poking his head into the room after knocking. "Everything okay?"

 _No, it most certainly was not_ , but Bucky couldn't find it within him to explain everything to Steve again.

"I'm not having a good day."

Steve nodded, and took a cautious step into the room. "Do you want to talk about it, or be distracted by it?"

"Distracted." It wasn't even a question.

Too late, he saw the dot of red between Steve's eyes, and when his friend fell, he screamed until his voice gave out.

* * *

_The subject is almost ready._

_I will alert management._

* * *

Bucky jolted back into awareness, to the same view he'd seen for the last… however many days. Steve's impending death weighed on him like a physical force.

"Buck," Steve asked, with the same amount of concern as he had every other day Bucky had stayed in bed, no matter if Bucky texted him or not. "Everything okay?"

"No." The wet sob that escaped after that surprised even Bucky, who tried to stifle it under a cough. But Steve had already heard it, and was quickly walking into the room.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't take it anymore," Bucky mumbled, swiping viciously at his eyes.

"Take what?" There was concern in Steve's voice, which was directed at the wrong person.

Again Bucky explained the whole situation, feeling as helpless as he had the first day he realized he'd inevitably be unable to save his friend.

"I'm sorry," Steve breathed, his expression matching what Bucky was feeling. "Have you—"

"Talked to Tony? Bruce? Literally everyone with any footnote on Google with knowledge of time loops? Yup. If we ever get out of this, I would write a whole freaking dissertation about everything I've learned."

"When."

"What?"

"You said 'if'. You meant 'when'."

"Doesn't feel much like a 'when' at this point, Steve."

"We'll figure it out together."

As if Bucky hadn't heard that before…

"What haven't you tried?" Steve asked, to which Bucky went through every maneuver he could remember.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Steve pulled out his phone and began typing.

"Are you listening to me?" Bucky snapped, interrupting the list of ways Steve had previously died.

"Yeah." Steve flipped his phone around. "Have you seen this result? Strange, on the Upper West Side."

"And that's special because?"

"Strange is a man," Steve enunciated slowly. "Expert in something time-related."

Bucky sat upright. Steve had searched many times for a solution, but this had never come up.

"How many pages did you go back?"

"It was the first result."

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Steve, who shrugged. "Has this never happened before?"

"No," Bucky said cautiously. "Never."

He dove at Steve, rucking up his shirt to reveal a fading scar over his hip, when he'd been shot on a mission with the Commandos. Nutrition had been so poor that month that the thing had never quite healed properly.

"Tell me something only you would know," he then demanded.

Almost instantly, Steve ran off a list of facts Bucky had never seen or heard of being published, online or otherwise.

"I'm me, Buck," he finished.

Bucky wanted to believe him, but something about this wasn't sitting right. Still, maybe it was his subconscious trying to tell him something... something that would be useful.

"Well, let's go visit this Strange character."

It was on the way there that the subway crashed.

* * *

_We're losing him._

_3 mg of epinephrine. He's in v-fib._

* * *

The next morning, Bucky was out of the Tower within five minutes of waking, and heading to the address Steve had found yesterday to meet Steven Strange, a former surgeon, who lived on the fourth floor of a luxury apartment complex.

The instant Bucky walked in, he knew something was wrong. For one, the building was one-level, with no staircase or elevator in sight. Two, the seemingly endless room was dark, with no windows, when Bucky had seen many floor-to-ceiling ones on the exterior. Three, a man was standing in front of him, a man who didn't look anything like Steven Strange's picture online.

This man was average-height, dark-haired, rugged in a way that came with real-life experience. One side of his face was deeply scarred.

Bucky knew that face, but couldn't place a name.

"What was it that gave it away?" the man asked.

"The search results." Bucky reached for his lower back, but his weapon was gone—as was the knife strapped to his thigh, the holster around his ankle, and the two handguns in his shoulder holster.

"You weren't supposed to be able to remember that far back."

"I remember all of them," Bucky snapped. "Who are you? And why are you doing this to me?"

"We're prepping you," the man said. He was wearing what looked like twin holsters, which crossed over his chest. "You were disobedient on a mission. Rebellious. Non-compliant. You didn't respond to our usual techniques."

The man tilted his head at Bucky, and laughed cruelly, the sound bouncing around the empty floor. "You don't remember any of this, do you?"

Above the man, a spotlight appeared, lighting up a red cephalopod which was crudely spray-painted on the grey wall.

"You thought you left us?" the man spat. "You've been here the whole time, living out this alternate reality, so we could remind you where you belong."

"No," Bucky gasped out, barely audible. That was wrong. He'd gotten free. Steve had broken through the programming. He was getting better. He lived at the Tower. He had a list of likes and dislikes. He went by "Bucky". He'd reclaimed his identity, and was working on accepting what he'd done.

Bucky lunged forward, coming up behind the man, but his holsters were empty. A split second later, faster than Bucky could fathom, a .45 was pointing between his eyes.

"I think we're ready to proceed to Phase Two," the man said, before pulling the trigger.

* * *

This time, when the asset awoke, it didn't see a warm white ceiling, or a nightstand with a book turned to page seventy-two. It saw a dark grey bunk, in a miniscule room, and someone standing above it, asking it, in Russian, if it was ready to comply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fear not! This prompt will be continued on _Day 26: Recovery_.
> 
> Up next, we switch fandoms again to Supergirl for _Day 3: Imprisonment_ , which we're loosely interpreting as quarantine and forced isolation, when Winn comes into contact with an alien toxin.
> 
> Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow!


	2. Day 8: "Hey, Hey, This Is No Time To Sleep"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 8: "Hey, Hey, This Is No Time To Sleep". Sam is knocked out during battle and has a vision of a familiar face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Abiding by the canon that the serum causes Steve to age slower, I choose to believe he's way older that he appeared at the end of Endgame. After outliving Peggy (or whatever canon you chose to believe), he stayed around and lived way into the future of his alternate timeline, or visiting multiple timelines (yay multiverse!), before travelling back to the original one and handing off his shield.
> 
> The prompt briefly refers to this head canon once, but you can pass it over if it doesn't fit your own head canons. It's not a critical part of the prompt.
> 
> Brief references to another one my other fics, _The Offer_ , but it doesn't have to be read for this to be understood.

"Hey, this is no time to sleep."

Sam Wilson opened aching eyes to see Steve standing over him—but not elderly Steve who had passed Sam his shield two months ago. This was young, thirty-something Steve, who could still stand straight and tall, and whose face held not a single wrinkle.

"Am I dead?"

"Not yet," young Steve said with a grin. Then he sobered. "Do you want to be?"

"No. I want to go back."

Steve smiled again, then held out his hand to pull Sam to his feet. It was so reminiscent of their first meeting that Sam's chest actually ached with the memory.

He looked Steve up and down, then pulled him into a tight hug, causing the air to whoosh out of his friend's lungs.

"God, I missed you," Sam said, clapping Steve twice on the back before pulling away. "Old you is fun and all, but he's not…" Sam gestured.

"Yeah, I hear he's a bit of a drag. Being over four hundred will do that to you, though."

Sam tilted his head in acknowledgement. "So if I'm not dead, what are you doing here?"

Steve shrugged. "We're in your head, you tell me."

Sam thought long and hard about this, and then remembered. It was his first mission as Captain America, or as "Falcon Cap", as the media had called him when New SHIELD had released the news. And if he was here, he was either unconscious, or under some sort of mind control.

"It's not mind control," Steve said with a grin.

"That's exactly what a figment of mind control would say."

"Trust me," Steve said, motioning for Sam to follow him.

As Sam did so, he saw they were in a forest of sorts which stretched in all directions, and was bisected by a quintessential dirt path that wound its way aimlessly through.

"So why do _you_ think I'm here?" Steve asked as they started down the path.

"I guess I'm feeling a little bit lost still. Like it should be you." Sam hesitated. "Or Bucky."

"But it isn't. I gave that shield to you." Without missing a step, Steve looked at him. "Do you feel like Bucky wants to take it from you?"

"No, not at all," Sam was quick to say. "But given the history between the two of you, it just seemed like he was the natural fit."

"Did he tell you he knew I was giving you the shield?"

"No."

"We talked. Before I left. Sorted a few things out. He thought you should have it. And before you ask, that was without me bringing it up first."

Sam stared at Steve in disbelief. He had known that Bucky respected him carrying the shield, but he hadn't until that moment known Bucky had actually contributed in suggesting it.

"Does that change things?"

"No. Maybe. A little." Sam sighed. "It still doesn't feel _right_. Captain America has always been _you_ , and here I am trying to fill your shoes."

"I never wanted you to fill them. I wanted you to buy your own pair." Steve grinned lopsidedly, just as Sam was about to comment that they'd exhausted that metaphor. "Maybe this rebrand isn't a terrible idea. 'Falcon Cap' might let you be exactly who you need to be."

Sam had to swallow hard as another wave of nostalgia rolled over him. "I really, really miss you," was all he could say. It wasn't that everyone else hadn't been supportive—they'd been nothing but, in fact—but Steve somehow always knew just what to say, to hit at the heart of the issue.

Steve slowed to a stop, then turned to face Sam. "You're going to do great, Sam. Just be yourself. That's all I ever wanted." Then he cocked his head to the side. "But you have to wake up now. Your team needs you."

"Come with," Sam begged, even though he knew this Steve wasn't real.

Sure enough, Steve just shook his head. "You know I can't do that." He reached out and clapped Sam on the shoulder. "You're going to be fine, Sam. I promise."

Then, using just the hand on Sam's shoulder, he shoved Sam backward.

The forest disappeared and Sam was falling down a black hole, quickly crashing, painlessly, into the ground. He opened his eyes to find Bucky, in full uniform, crouching next to him, swearing, while one-handedly reloading his gun.

He glanced down when Sam started pushing himself up right. "You back with me?" he asked, eyes back on his target as he began to fire over the outcropping Sam realized he was leaning against.

_In more ways that one._

"Yeah," was all Sam said as he rolled his neck then hauled himself into a position to match Bucky's. "Lay it out for me."

For some reason, Bucky grinned, shooting Sam a knowing glance as if he knew what had happened or sensed a change—maybe he did. Sam wouldn't put it past him—but then, without additional commentary, he did as Sam had ordered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is excited for _The Falcon and The Winter Soldier_ after that new Super Bowl ad?
> 
> Up next: _Day 9: Buried Alive_. On an Avengers mission, a bank collapses on Steve and Tony.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	3. Day 9: Buried Alive (Part 1 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 9: Buried Alive (Part 1 of 2). On an Avengers' mission, a bank collapses on Steve and Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Set post- _Iron Man 3_ , pre- _The Winter Soldier_.

Tony was woken in the middle of the night by his alarm—not just any alarm, the Avengers emergency alarm he'd specifically programmed JARVIS not to ignore.

Which meant this was serious.

He flipped over, his left hand pawing at the side table in search of his phone. Having been up most of the night for a business meeting, Tony had only fallen asleep a few hours ago. Less than two, he realized as he located his phone and squinted at the bright screen.

"Whazzit, J?" Tony mumbled as he swiped at his stinging eyes.

"There is a man holding five tellers hostage as First American Bank on 6th."

Tony squinted at his phone again, this time absorbing the numbers as a time of day instead of just a delta of how long he'd been sleeping. "It's 8 AM. How are they…"

"They have been open for an entire hour, sir."

Ugh. Morning people. Tony sat upright and twisted out his aching back, prepping himself for another flight in his suit. As he did so, a thought struck him.

"Why aren't the police handling this?"

"The energy signature of the weapon reveals it is alien in origin. They are on the scene but have asked for your assistance, via SHIELD."

Tony groaned. "Tell the Eyepatch I'm on it, but that he better start figuring out why Damage Control missed all these weapons."

"I am on it as well, sir."

Tony pushed himself off his bed and made his way to the closet to change into his undersuit, while simultaneously ordering DUM-E to create a protein shake for him to grab on the way out. "Who else is around?" he asked as he shucked his shirt over his head.

"Just Captain Rogers, sir. Agents Barton and Romanoff are still on assignment, Thor is off-world and Dr. Banner returned on India on Monday."

Right. Well that was okay. He and Cap could handle one deranged idiot with a Chitauri weapon.

"Would you like me to request additional back-up, sir?" JARVIS asked a beat later.

"No, J," Tony said as he emerged from his closet and made his way out of the room. "Captain Spangles and I have it. Tell Fury I'm on my way."

* * *

"What's the situation?" he asked twenty minutes later, coming to a stop by Steve, who was leaning into the mobile SHIELD command center. He was still dressed in that god-awful Battle of New York suit, which Tony really needed to redesign one of these days. His shield was slung across his back, shiny and unmarred as ever.

"He used the gun to blast the door off the vault," Steve reported. "It triggered its time lock, which alerted the security company and then the police."

"Do we have eyes on there?"

"Not yet."

"How's the hostage negotiator fairing?"

Steve looked at him in surprise, to which Tony had just smirked. Sure, he'd given Fury a ton of flack about making them read manuals and attend a variety of frontline seminars. Despite the fact he'd pretended to be bored in each, he'd actually absorbed quite a bit.

"Hasn't been able to make contact."

There was a large crack, then a bolt of blue flashed in the sky above the bank.

"Captain," Hill said, sticking her head out of the van. "They just shot through the ceiling."

"I guess that's our cue," Tony said, turning to Steve.

"You should be able to get in through the back," Hill continued. "The Iron Man suit should be able to cut through the lock." She disappeared for a moment, then came back with a black box. "Stick that to the security sensor, and it'll trick it into thinking the door is still closed."

"Thanks," Steve said, sliding it into one of the pockets of his utility belt. He then looked up at Tony. "Ready?"

Tony dropped his faceplate. "Call it, Cap."

* * *

Hill had been right. A combination of the black box and Tony's finger laser had let them into the building. Now the two Avengers crept to the front room, where they could hear a man shouting loudly over a series of stifled sobs.

In the back hallway, just before entering, Steve motioned for Tony to take a look and report back. Tony peered around the corner, allowing JARVIS to do a quick scan, then gestured to where people were to Steve, who nodded.

_Making contact one more time_ , Steve then mouthed and a split second later, he pointed toward the farthest teller station, where the phone was now ringing.

"No one answer!" the man shouted. "Keep loading up the vault."

"Please just let us go," a woman cried, out of their line of sight.

They heard the hum of a Chitauri weapon and the woman began to sob.

"Cover me," Steve ordered before stepping out into the main area.

"I'm not going to let you hurt all these people," he said, hands lifted to his shoulders but still more than capable of reaching his shield if need be. "Let them go and deal with me instead."

"I warned you not to breach!" As the man was talking, he pulled the barrel of the gun away from the floor, and trained it on the hostages as blue pulses began to shoot down the barrel.

Tony was firing up a repulsor, but Steve was slightly faster. He threw his shield at the weapon, knocking the shot off-course. It blasted through the side wall, far away from any hostage.

Somehow the man managed to keep his grip on weapon and was bringing it back to try again. That's when Tony suspected the armed man had to be super. At the speed Steve had thrown that shield, there was no way a mere human could have kept his grip.

That was also when Tony realized the Chitauri weapon was doing far more damage than he'd suspected. Even though there was a well-defined hole through the wall, deep cracks were emanating away from the center, causing the wall to begin to crumble and revealing deep fissures in the support beams beneath it. With one shot in the ceiling, another in the vault and now this one, they had to get these hostages out before the whole building came down.

"I got him," Steve shouted to Tony, snatching his shield out of the air before going to engage the man. "You get the hostages out."

"No!" the man bellowed, firing again, but this time, Steve had slung his shield in front of him and braced himself behind it.

The shield took the blast at point-blank range, but absorbed enough of the energy that Steve was only sent sliding a few feet back. He recovered quickly, pulling the shield across his body and backhanding the side of the weapon. While Tony hurried out of the hallway and into the vault, he recognized that Steve was pushing the man back, putting as much space as possible between him and the hostages.

As soon as Tony stepped into the main area, he raised his armed repulsor, just in case the man had a partner who was supervising the operation. A quick scan revealed no one like that in sight, and all the tellers just braced themselves and stuck their hands high into the air.

"I'm going to get you out of here," Tony said in Iron Man's mechanical voice. Then, he took a look at the group of them, which would be too many for him to carry at once. "Grab hands," he ordered.

They stuttered together, biting back sobs, and the moment they were all connected, Tony grabbed as many limbs as he could and took off flying toward the main glass doors. Behind him, the tellers shrieked at the fast pace, but according to JARVIS, all seemed to be maintaining their grip.

"To your left, sir," JARVIS intoned.

Tony saw the incoming blast in the HUD and dove toward the ground. The shot sailed harmlessly overhead and tore a hole in the wall to the right. As the structure creaked ominously, the wailing behind Tony increased in such intensity that JARVIS lowered the volume on the speakers. He wanted to check on Steve, to see how he'd let the blast be fired, but for once, Tony understood his current mission was the far more important one and stuck with it.

"We're coming out!" he shouted both into the comms, which SHIELD would be tuned to on the other end, and the external speakers as they sailed through the lobby. "Don't shoot!"

"No!" the man bellowed from behind him.

Tony braced himself for another shot, but none came. In the comms, there was a sharp collision of metal followed by a series of grunts.

"Just a little longer, Steve, and I'm coming back for you," Tony muttered, mostly to himself.

He then lifted his right hand as much as he could and fired at the glass door, knocking out the glass and most of the frame. Aware of the edges, he turned himself as much as possible to get the tellers through without additional injury. A little careful finagling from JARVIS ensured this fact.

Once outside, Tony flew well past the police barrier and deposited the tellers, all five thankfully unarmed, before quickly turning around to fly back into the bank.

The exact second he did so, he heard Steve yelp, and something metal clatter to the ground. Tony was back in the air the very next instant. He burst through the previous opening to find Steve crumpled on his knees, the man pointing the Chitauri weapon at his head.

Tony fired his gauntlet in the man's direction, trusting JARVIS to make it count, as he went to cover Steve. The repulsor blast should have landed long before the man could have pulled the trigger, but yet, it somehow didn't. As the man was falling backward, the gun lit up and fired a blue bolt, which hit square in the center of the ceiling, where the joists intersected. Unlike the previous blasts, this one didn't stop when the man's hand fell away from the trigger, and tore a long vertical line down the side of the building as it fell to the floor.

The most awful groan tore through the air, and Tony spared a split second to look up to see the beams tilt in, and the entire ceiling begin to disintegrate.

Hoping Steve was healthy enough to move, Tony bundled him into his arms, shield included, and took off for the door.

He felt the suit jerk to the side as JARVIS avoided a large beam, and they were just drifting back to the original course when something crashed into his legs and knocked him to the ground.

Stunned by the harsh impact, Tony was just aware enough to realize Steve had disappeared from his arms.

"Ste—" he began, but was cut off by something else landing on top of him.

It took Tony only a second to realize it was a person dressed in a spangly outfit and not another beam. He fought hard, trying to flip himself out from under Steve, who now splayed over him and closing his fist to call his shield.

"I have a suit, you bast—"

That was the last syllable Tony was able to get out before the groaning reached fever pitch and the building collapsed around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued on _Day 13: Hiding Injury_ , which I think is pretty self-explanatory.
> 
> Up next: _Day 10: "I'm Sorry. I Didn't Know"_. Not long after defecting to SHIELD, Natasha is triggered by an everyday object at the Barton farm.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	4. Day 10: "I'm Sorry. I Didn't Know"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 10: "I'm Sorry. I Didn't Know". Not long after defecting to SHIELD, Natasha is triggered by an everyday object at the Barton farm.

"Are you sure?" Laura asked, her voice laced with concern.

"I am. It's been two weeks without an incident, and I think she could really use a change of scenery," Clint replied. It had been over four weeks since Natasha had defected, all of which had been spent in a cell in SHIELD lockdown. It was a nice cell, with a padded mattress and a private bathroom and a laptop secured to the desk, but it was a cell nonetheless.

"But are you _sure_?"

"I'm sure."

Laura sighed. "Okay then. Next weekend?"

"We'll be there."

* * *

"Are you sure I'm ready?" Natasha asked softly as she climbed into the passenger's seat of Clint's truck. Her hair was still as red as ever, but the dark circles under her eyes showcased her exhaustion.

"I'm sure," Clint said, firing up the engine. "Remember you don't have to stay with us all the time. If you want to get out, we have a few acres. See the sights, go for a run, we'll be at the house when you're ready."

"And don't leave the property," Natasha held up her wrist, where a tracking band—courtesy of Fury—resided.

"I didn't say that; Fury did."

"I know." She sagged back into the car seat. "I don't want to hurt Laura or Cooper."

"You won't. I wouldn't bring you here if I thought otherwise."

At the driveway, Clint stopped the car. "You ready?"

Natasha nodded, then reached behind her and pulled out a gun—a gun she wasn't supposed to have. She handed it over to Clint, with a non-apologetic shrug.

He didn't seem surprised, and just ran his thumbprint over the glove box lock to deactivate the smart lock, placing the gun inside. He then pulled his sleeve over his palm and wiped the sensor clean of the residue. Just in case.

"Let's go."

* * *

The day stared out fine. Natasha steered far clear of Cooper, but interacted somewhat with Laura. They had arrived after breakfast, so Laura had set a table for a snack of coffee and pastries. In his high chair, Cooper was alternating between squealing happily and banging a plastic spoon against the table.

Afterward, Laura put Cooper down for a nap, while Clint and Natasha went on a walk around the property. When they returned, Laura was setting the table for a late lunch. Clint plastered Cooper, who was back to sitting in his highchair, with kisses, then automatically went to the cupboard closest to Laura to fetch drinking glasses.

"Do you want to grab the bowls?" he then asked Natasha, who was standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen. When she nodded, he tilted his head at the cabinets on the other side of the stove.

That's where the day took a sharp turn. The second Natasha opened the cabinet door, she let out a choked shriek and threw herself in the other direction. She crashed into the pantry door and collapsed to the ground, knees to chest, a keening sound slipping from her lips.

"Go," Clint ordered Laura, dropping down beside Natasha.

Without argument, Laura grabbed Cooper and headed upstairs to the master bedroom, where she pulled Clint's gun from the nightstand, and slipped off the safety. She didn't want to use it on Natasha, after everything she'd been through, but she'd do what she had to to protect her child.

Back down in the kitchen, Natasha continued to sob into her knees, shaking like a leaf.

"Natasha," Clint said softly, not wanting to touch her in case that would make the situation worse.

She was mumbling something in Russian, so softly and so quickly he couldn't even catch fragments.

"Natasha," Clint repeated. When she still didn't respond, he settled on another tactic. "I'm Clint Barton. You defected from the KGB a month ago, you've been staying at SHIELD HQ while you settle in. You came with me to my farm this weekend. You met my wife Laura, and my son, Cooper." Clint kept this up until Natasha's sobs slowed, and she finally lifted her head to look up at him. It had been a true release of emotion, and not a decoy like he had considered for less than a split second. Her eyes were red and puffy, tears ran down her face, and she looked genuinely miserable.

"Are you thirsty?" Clint asked. When she nodded stiffly, he reached up to fetch one of the glasses of now-lukewarm water off the counter. He placed it on the ground then slid it over to her.

She sipped at it, then let her head fall back against her knees.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head.

"Can you tell me what it was, so you don't have to go through this again?"

She looked up in mild confusion. "It wasn't a test?" she asked thickly.

Clint shook her head. "There are never any tests at my farm."

She looked like she didn't entirely believe him.

"Natasha, I promise you there are no tests out here. This is my escape, and if you want it, it can be yours too."

She pressed her lips together tightly as she nodded. "Bowls."

Clint rose and pulled the stack of patterned stoneware bowls Natasha had been fetching from the cabinet. Without showing them to her, he moved them into a low cabinet in the buffet in the dining room.

He turned as he felt Natasha's presence behind her.

"Just like that?" she asked in a soft voice.

He nodded. "Just like that."

"What are you going to eat on?" she asked, to which Clint laughed.

"We'll find something, Natasha. Don't worry."

She still looked unsure, like what she had done was wrong.

"It's not, you know," he said as he ushered her back into the kitchen, and gave Laura the all-clear. "Wrong, that is."

"Widows aren't supposed to have emotions," Natasha said as she sat down at the island, and downed another glass of water.

"Well, you're not a Widow anymore," Clint said. "You're a fully-fledged person who has feelings and emotions and wants, and you no longer have to hide those parts of yourself."

Natasha didn't respond, but he could tell she had heard her.

"Just consider it," Clint said as Laura walked back in, sans Cooper.

"He's out," she said to Clint before heading over to the cabinets. If she was surprised by the lack of stoneware bowls, she didn't comment, and instead fished out extras of Cooper's plastic bowls and ladled in the soup.

"I'm sorry," Natasha said almost immediately. "I didn't know—"

"No need to be sorry," Laura said as she handed out the bowls then lead the way into the dining room. "I've seen Clint do worse than that, especially as he was starting out at SHIELD."

Natasha looked at Clint in surprise, which only increased when he nodded.

"Let's eat before it gets cold," Laura then said before handing out spoons.

Natasha accepted one, and took a hesitant sip of the soup. "It's good," she said after a moment. "Thank you."

"I expect you to eat up," Laura said. "There's more than enough for everyone."

* * *

It was only once lunch was over and they were putting the dishes in the sink that Natasha spoke up again. "Are you going to tell Fury?"

Clint shook his head. "What happens outside of SHIELD stays outside of SHIELD."

Again, Natasha looked at him in surprise.

"No tests, remember?" he reminded her.

She nodded, still hesitantly, but in his opinion, less so than earlier. "Thanks," she finally said.

Clint knocked his elbow against hers, taking the time to telegraph his movements so she could back away if she wanted to—she didn't—and replied, "You're welcome."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Day 11: Hallucinations_. Continuation of _Day 3: Imprisonment_ , starring our favorite Winn Schott.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	5. Day 13: Hiding Injury (Buried Alive Part 2 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 13: Hiding Injury (Buried Alive Part 2 of 2)._ Trapped under the bank, one of the Avengers is hiding a serious injury.

Tony Stark was aware of two things when he came around. One, his head hurt, and two, he couldn't feel the rest of his body.

"J, w'ke up," Tony hissed, but there was no response—not even the slightest flicker in any of his sensors.

So three, his HUD was dead.

He heard a large mass shifting and braced himself, but the impact never came. Then he heard a groan from above him, and another shift, this time in the opposite direction.

He recognized that groan.

"'eve?" he rasped.

"Yeah."

"W're we?"

He heard another shift and instinctively tried to lift his hands to protect himself. His arms moved slightly—an improvement over before—but hardly left the ground. Steve groaned again, and the shifting stopped.

"W's wrong?" Tony asked, as a feeling of helplessness surged within him. Steve knew where the emergency release was on the suit. So if he hadn't freed Tony, they were either in a place where it was better for him to stay in the suit, or Steve wasn't able to free him.

With a sinking feeling, he suspected it was the latter.

"'member… the robbery?" Steve gasped, his voice thin and strained.

"Yeah."

"'lding caved in."

Panic surged within Tony and he had to force himself to breathe as deeply as he could with the nose of the suit a scant inch from his face.

"Where're we now?" Now that some feeling returned to his limbs, he tried to push himself up, to pop off his face plate, but he collided with something hard—something human, something _Steve_ based on the groan. They couldn't have been more than a foot apart.

"St'y still," Steve ordered breathlessly.

Tony was on full alert the next second. "What's wrong?" he demanded.

"Kinda… holdin' up the ceiling."

Oh shit.

"Okay, okay," Tony began to mumble as he ran through their options, but quickly realized all of them would be useless without a visual grasp of the situation.

"I need to pop up my face plate," he said slowly. "I need to see what's going on, so I can hopefully get us out of here. If I don't sit up, can I reach my face?"

He heard a shift.

"I can't see you, Steve. Yes or no?"

There was a long pause filled with Steve's heavy breathing. "Y'th."

"Okay, starting to move now." Tony slowly snaked his right arm along the armor, colliding gently with a vertical something by his shoulder.

"Arm," Steve hissed, before Tony could ask. So it appeared Steve was braced over him, holding up the ceiling with his back.

God.

It was a bit of a blocker, but Tony still had enough mobility to reach the release on the face plate and pop it open.

It thunked into something, thankfully not soft and fleshy. Given that the suit was dead, Tony wasn't surprised to see mostly darkness around them, but he was surprised to see the arc reactor wasn't totally dead. Though it was cracked down the middle, it was still flickering unevenly. Thankfully it wasn't powering his heart anymore, so Tony didn't have to worry about going into cardiac arrest, but it wasn't producing enough energy to power either the suit or JARVIS. Though maybe it could send out a weak distress signal somehow...

But that was for later. More importantly was evaluating the ceiling and potentially bracing it, so there would be time for projects like rewiring the arc.

Steve's head was a bit lower, hanging around Tony's shoulders. He looked up at the sound of the face plate popping open, which allowed Tony to see his face was covered in blood, which dripped from a deep gash over his eye. In the weak light from the arc, the effect was ghastly, almost ghoulish.

"Steve!"

"S'perficial," Steve grunted, then shifted back slightly as the ceiling moaned again.

"Have you been able to get in touch with anyone else?"

"No." There was another shift just then, drawing out the 'o' of Steve's response.

Jesus.

They had to find a way to brace the ceiling before even Steve in his superness couldn't hold it up anymore.

Tony took a quick look around the space. It was small, only about six inches around him on any side. Large slabs of concrete crisscrossed above Steve, and from their angle, were desperately trying to crash to the ground. Steve had managed to catch a long piece across his back, which was keeping this small pocket free for them.

Without his faceplate, debris drizzled down on Tony's face, and he knew they didn't have long before the large slabs cracked under the weight of what they were holding.

"It doesn't look like there's a good way to brace the ceiling other than what you're doing," Tony reported. "Sorry."

"Figured."

"So I'm going to try to rewire the arc to send a signal aboveground, okay?"

Steve didn't respond.

" _Okay_ , Steve?"

"Yup," Steve gasped. "Just hurry."

There was something in his voice that gave Tony pause. Sure Steve was straining to hold up the ceiling, but there was a note of something else in his tone.

The slabs shifted again and Steve's body slipped closer to Tony's before he was able to catch it.

"What if I hold it for a minute? So you can get a break?" Tony offered, but as soon as the words left his mouth he knew he wouldn't be able to. Without a fully working suit, he wouldn't be able to hold the weight on his own. Even if he could lock out the suit's joints, he didn't know what damage they'd sustained during the original cave-in. "Or we can share."

"Jus' send the call," Steve said. "Got this." Then with an unholy cry, he rose up a little until he could straighten out his elbows again, putting some additional space between him and Tony.

By the time he was finished, Steve was breathing hard, gasping, but his inhales were short and pained, with more than just exertion.

"Where are you hurt?" Tony demanded, lifting himself as much as he could so he had a better look at Steve's face.

The supersoldier just shook his head and let it drop down between his shoulders again. "Hurry… Tony!"

It must be bad—and more than just imminent death due to cave-in bad—for Steve to be deflecting like this.

However, said deflection was probably appropriate in the circumstances. Sandwiched like this, with only minimal power left in the arc, there most likely wasn't anything Tony could do about any injury of Steve's, so he turned his attention back to his reactor and began to expose the wires. That slight shift in position, however, changing the angle of the arc's weak glow, allowed Tony to see something jagged poking out of Steve's side, which was dripping onto the suit and pooling on the cracked cement beside them.

"Steve." Even as he said it, Tony knew there was nothing he could do. Without power to his gauntlet, he couldn't cauterize the wound, and he couldn't get at any of his clothing beneath his armor to press against the wound.

And Tony hated it.

Steve swallowed hard, then looked up as much as he could. "Nothin' you can do," he grunted. "Distress call," he added, staring pointedly at the reactor.

"Yup."

Tony's fingers were flying, pulling off the glass, loosening the housing.

"Keep talking to me, Steve. I need to know you're hanging in there."

"Am."

"More than that. Tell me a story."

"'bout how we get out of here?"

"That would be a little on the nose, but anything you want, really," Tony said as he freed wires and coils and began reworking their configuration into an elementary antenna. "The floor is yours."

"Didja know I wanted to go to art school?"

Without looking away from his work, Tony shook his head. "Nope, none of that 'I wish my life would have been different', deathbed-type confessions. Find something else to serenade me with."

"Not a confession."

"Find something else," Tony ground out.

With another snap, the antenna was done and Tony began sending a signal by touching two of the loose wires together in an SOS. Given the weak flicker of the arc, the signal would barely be anything but hopefully it was enough. The team would be listening; of that Tony was certain. All the signal had to do was make it far enough to be picked up.

Steve lifted his head slightly to watch Tony through eyes barely wider than slits. Knowing they didn't have much longer, Tony began tapping the wire together faster, unspooling what was left with his free hand.

But then the worst case scenario happened, and Steve's eyes rolled up into his head. He slouched forward, the concrete slabs above him hurriedly following. Tony had barely a second to engage the gauntlets and catch the ceiling a mere few inches over Steve's back. He flinched as they groaned, and the metal of the suit crinkled slightly, but despite all odds, it held.

Pressed together like this, Tony could hear Steve's uneven breathing into his neck—Steve was still alive, but just barely. More worryingly, however, Tony could now hear the pings of blood as they dripped against his armor. Now holding up the ceiling himself, Tony was unable to access the distress signal, and was reduced to hoping the little bit of signal he'd managed had gone through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of today's prompt, but clearly they are rescued and Tony takes it upon himself to design the stealth suit since the BONY suit is no longer salvageable.
> 
> Up next: _Day 14: "I Didn't Mean It"_. How Winn (Supergirl) angered Pam from HR (referenced in 3x15).
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	6. Day 17: Field Surgery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 17: Field Surgery._ Clint invites Steve to his farm for a relaxing weekend, which doesn't go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To fill an ask by JaggerK (Fanfiction), we're reworking [Weekend at Barton's](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21160427/chapters/50363645), to include the Barton family. Full summary is "Clint finds out Steve has maxed out his PTO and convinces him to spend the long weekend at his family's house in Iowa. Unfortunately, the relaxing vacation does not go as planned." Condensed down to a 3k prompt.

Laura had just sat the kids down at the table, and was in the process of bringing in food from the kitchen, when the front door burst open. A battered Steve Rogers stood in the opening, carrying her husband, whose head lolled over Steve's arm. Blood coated the left side of Steve's neck and he was obviously keeping weight off his right ankle. Clint had what looked like fishing line wrapped around his middle, keeping what looked like a jacket—Steve's jacket—in place.

"Orange icicle. Ambulance," she told Lila, who hurriedly free Nathaniel from the booster seat, before following Cooper up the stairs to their rooms.

"What happened?" Laura asked as she swiped the plastic plates off the table and motioned for Steve to lay Clint down. "Steve!" she shouted when he didn't move.

He finally looked over at her, though he wasn't really seeing her.

"Put Clint down," she ordered.

He ground slowly into motion, hobbling over to the table and gently laying Clint down.

"What happened?" Laura asked again as she pulled the cushions off the chairs and stuck them under her husband's legs.

"Wolf attack."

Had Laura not been a trained nurse, she might have looked up in shock; neither she nor Clint had heard any wolf activity in the area for months now. Experienced as she was though, she took the information in stride as she pulled a massive handled box from under the sink and opened it on the chair sticking out from the table.

She pulled on set of gloves then set about cutting the fishing line and what remained of Clint's shirt. As the line gave way, the shirt fell in shreds, revealing a similar pattern in Clint's skin.

"That's no ordinary wolf." The wounds were too defined, not at all ragged.

"Yeah," Steve looked up in surprise and the quick shift of his weight caused him to teeter slightly. He quickly leaned against the table, bracing himself with his left hand. "Animatronic," he ground out through clenched teeth and from his short, quick inhales and deep swallows, it was obvious that he was trying to keep from retching.

"Is he injured anywhere else?" Laura asked as she shoved a cushion against Clint's side, then leaned forward to apply pressure. Once she stabilized him, they could make the forty-minute drive to the hospital, where he'd need more than her first aid kid—as well stocked as it was—could give.

"Don't think…so?"

"How about you, Steve? How badly did you hit your head?" she asked as she touched the side of Clint's neck, barely able to feel a pulse beneath her fingertips. His skin was freezing, courtesy of the frigid day, and as Laura looked up, she could see a slightly blue tinge to Steve's lips. She needed to get them both warm, and stat.

"'m fine," Steve was quick to say. "Jus' take 'are of Clint."

"I'm doing my best. But I need to know how you're doing too, Steve."

"L'be fine." Steve finally seemed to have regained his balance and straightened up slightly, if not unevenly. "Wha' can I do?"

Laura wanted nothing more than to tell him to sit down before he passed out, but in the absence of other medical staff, she was going to have to do some field surgery herself if Clint wanted any chance of surviving the trip to the hospital. "I'm going to need you to put pressure on these while I stitch them up."

Steve nodded disjointedly and hobbled over to her.

"I'm going to pull back on three and you take over." She looked directly at Steve. "You got it?"

Steve's face tightened with pain but he nodded. "Okay," he said finally.

"Good. One, two, three!" Laura waited until Steve's forearms were lined up next to hers before pulling back. The soldier shifted over to his right, and leaned heavily on Clint.

Laura was already moving, grabbing the suture kit and ripping it open with her teeth.

"Okay Steve," she said as once she had the forceps in one hand and the suture in the other. "I need to see the first row."

Steve grit his teeth then pulled back the cushion back ever so slightly. Laura soaked the gauze in disinfectant then swiped it across the wound. This one was smaller than she'd thought, only about two or three inches in length. She quickly threw the gauze aside, irrigated the laceration with a stream of water, and began her stitches. They weren't as neat or even as they'd been back in the day, but they did the job all the same. Besides, the hospital would be opening them back up when he got there to close up any internal bleeds.

As she instructed Steve to move the towels back again, she spared a second to see his face tightly scrunched, as if trying to avoid passing out or throwing up. Neither was preferable, given the blood caked to the side of his face.

Given that he was still standing, however, Laura turned her attention back to disinfecting and stitching the next slice in Clint's side.

* * *

Twenty long minutes later, Laura tied off the last stitch, then wiped Clint's abdomen with another pad of disinfectant-soaked gauze. He didn't so much as flinch, even as she taped large squares of gauze over the wounds. She grabbed his wrist and took his pulse, noting it had steadied out slightly but it was still far too uneven to be considered normal. Given the amount of blood staining the table and floor around them, he needed a blood transfusion and IV fluids, only one of which Laura had on hand. She quickly threaded the emergency saline, fetched from high mudroom storage, and stuck the needle into her husband's elbow.

"How's he?" Steve croaked.

Laura looked up to see the supersoldier slouched in a chair, bracing his elbow against the wooden arm, and pressing a clean towel against the side of his head. He had lost some of his color, and looked to be not far from passing out himself. He had warmed up slightly, judging by the color of his lips, but still was shivering minutely.

"He's stable, but he needs the hospital," Laura admitted. "I've done all I can."

"Needs blood, doesn't he?"

"Yes." Unfortunately, though she'd been attempting to do so for years, Laura wasn't able to keep blood on hand at the farm. Even more frustrating, she wasn't Clint's blood type, so she couldn't donate directly to him.

Steve however held out his arm, and with his other, pulled a pack of tubing for a direct donation from her kit. "Give him some of mine."

"You're not his type, either." Laura had done her homework very early on, upon hearing that Clint had joined the Avengers.

"Serum," Steve said, before biting back a groan.

"I don't know, Steve, we can't risk it." Her phone then rang, and she grabbed it off the table to find it was the dispatcher wanting more information about Clint's injury. Cooper, as instructed, must have called them and given her number for just this purpose.

"Is dad going to be alright?"

Laura looked up when she heard Cooper's small voice in the doorway.

 _Are you supposed to leave your room in a code orange?_ she signed, moving so she blocked Cooper's view of the table Clint was lying on, while still on the phone with the dispatcher.

 _I had to see_ , Cooper signed back, unapologetically.

 _He'll be fine_ , Laura signed back, fervently hoping that wasn't a lie. _Now get back to your siblings._

Cooper tried to look over Laura's shoulder, but she shook her head.

"Yes, mom," he said unhappily as he disappeared from the room.

When the dispatcher finally hung up, Clint had gone even more gray, and his pulse was weakening. Laura set her mouth in a thin line, and made an executive decision. "Okay Steve, climb up on the counter."

* * *

"How are you doing, Steve?" Laura asked many long minutes later. It had taken some time to Steve on the counter and the table with Clint on it pushed close enough so the tubing could connect the two of them. Actually starting the blood donation had been the easy part.

Now, she was keeping a careful eye on both of them, since the tubing didn't have any way of measuring how much blood was being taken from Steve. His arm was propped up on a bunch of cookbooks, and the blood slowly trailed out of it, down the tubing, and into Clint's arm. If Laura wasn't mistaken—and she might be, as exhaustion began wearing on her—there was a little more color in Clint's cheeks.

Steve looked about the same, but Laura was plying his metabolism with sugary drinks and as much food as she could stuff down his throat to minimize a reaction.

She had just stood up to refill his juice a third time when she heard sirens in the distance. It was only then that the constant stream of prayers that had been running in the back of her head finally ceased.

Help was here.

After a second, Steve must have heard the sound, for he perked up a little too. "Here?" he asked as he lifted his head from the counter. "Good," he slurred when Laura nodded. His head dropped back to the countertop too quickly for Laura's liking.

"Don't you go passing out now, Cap," she snapped as she hauled herself along the counter back to him.

Thankfully, Steve's eyes flitted open again and made decently good contact with her own. "Jus' restin' my eyes," he said, his voice apologetic yet full of exhaustion.

"Gotta keep 'em open until the paramedics get here," she replied, to which he dipped his chin ever-so-slightly.

"You're going to be alright, Steve," she said, taking his hand in hers and squeezing slightly. Then she looked over at Clint, who seemed to be breathing at a more regular rate. "Both of you are."

When she looked back at Steve, his eyes were closed, his face slack, and no amount of her shaking his hand seemed to rouse him.

She was about half a second away from slapping him when a paramedic ran into the room. He took the situation in in about ten seconds, then began calling out orders to his crew.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he asked as he began examining Clint.

Laura regurgitated the little Steve had told her, up to their decision to do a direct transfusion to save Clint's life. "He's lost consciousness too," she said, pointing to Steve.

The paramedic took this information in stride and only briefly glanced over at Steve. "If that's who I think it is, he can wait a minute. Hawkeye here, not so much."

As he spoke, two more paramedics came hustling into the kitchen pushing a gurney. One ran to Clint's side while the other began examining Steve.

Laura let them work, but jumped in to hold things and provide pressure when asked. She didn't try to press her way in unnecessarily, as much as she wanted to, because this wasn't her area of expertise, and hadn't been for years.

Soon, Steve was loaded onto a stretcher and hustled out to the ambulance while the paramedics continued to stabilize Clint. Then the stretcher returned and Clint was loaded onto it.

"County General?" Laura asked as they hurried out the door.

"Yes, ma'am."

Laura followed the paramedics outside and saw Steve strapped to a bench seat in the back of the ambulance and connected to a series of bags, while the paramedics worked to load Clint's gurney in. As much as she wanted to go with, she had three children to attend to and no close neighbors to help her out.

"Take care of them," she said, almost unnecessarily.

"Don't worry, ma'am," the driver said, before closing the door behind his teammates. "We'll do our best."

She watched the ambulance pull out of the driveway, and turned back to see her eldest children's faces peering out of the bottom of the window. The faces disappeared the instant she realized she'd seen them.

They were really going to need to work on those drills Clint ran them through. Cooper had broken the main rule by leaving his room before the safety code was called, and now, they had very obviously revealed their presence to someone who might not have known they were there before.

"Purple sundae," she called as she walked back into the house. Seconds later, she was attacked by three children, two of whom burst into tears. Nathaniel, too young to understand what was going on, bobbed about the room on steady legs, pushing his toy car that was sitting by his chair.

"Is daddy going to be okay?" Lila sobbed into Laura's shoulder.

"He's going to mommy's old hospital and is going to get the best care possible," Laura said. Then she leaned back slightly so she could see the two elder children's faces. "We need to make a family decision. I want to be there in case your dad needs me. But there will be a lot of sitting and waiting and entertaining Nathaniel. Do you think you are up for it?"

"Yes!" the eldest children cried.

"Then go grab your shoes, I'll get Nathaniel ready."

They were gone before she finished her sentence.

* * *

"Mrs. Barton?" a doctor said a few long hours later. Tony and Natasha had arrived within half an hour of Laura, and after pushing her way through to check on Clint, Natasha had volunteered to distract the Barton children so Laura could try to slip back there.

The few staff she recognized still had greeted her then passed on their condolences. The nurse manning the floor of the OR had refused to let her scrub in, but had allowed her to watch from observation. And watch she did as they removed her stitches from Clint's side, clamped an internal bleed, thoroughly cleaned the area, then redid her work.

"How's he doing?" Tony asked from behind her.

"How'd you get in here?" she replied, eyes not leaving the other side of the glass.

"I'm Tony Stark."

Laura let out a noncommittal hum.

"SI is going to match up to half of the donations for the new wing," Tony admitted.

"That's incredibly generous of you," Laura said, finally looking back at him. "Thank you."

Tony looked away uncomfortably. "So how is he?"

"Stable. They're closing him up now. Have you heard anything about Steve?"

"Concussion, broken ankle which had to be surgically set." Tony tilted his head. "He's in the next room over."

Laura briefly felt bad for not worrying about Steve until then, but then pushed it away. Tony had, and that was enough for right now.

"Did you tell Nat?"

"She's on her way in. Apparently your college roommate is going to take the kids to the park, so she can come back here."

Laura trusted her college roommate, who had also been a SHIELD nurse, which was how she had met Clint, with her life and knew she would take good care of her children.

"Thanks," she said again as she looked back into the OR.

The staff, instead of disbanding at the end of the surgery, were clustered over Clint's body. Laura pressed herself closer to the glass, as if that would help her vantage point.

"What's wrong?" she demanded, though no one could hear her.

She heard Tony tapping on his phone,and then sounds of the OR filtered in through the loudspeaker.

"I've never seen anything like it," Dr. Dennison was saying, leaning closer to examine Clint's side. Laura checked his vitals on the monitors to see them growing increasingly stronger, almost shockingly so.

"Steve's blood," she breathed.

Tony listened for another moment then nodded. "It seems that way." He was tapping on his phone again a minute later. "They'll have to go through the same procedure as Steve's room now, since there's serum on their gear."

"I'll tell Ellen," Laura said absently, watching as her husband's pulse continued to climb.

* * *

It was only about an hour later than Clint woke up, his gaze far more steady and alert than someone who had nearly died half a day ago had any right to be. Laura had been compulsively checking beneath the gauze, watching Clint's wounds close, the skin beneath the stitches a bright shade of pink. It was a level of healing she expected to see a week or so out and until that time, had only seen it with Steve.

"At this rate, we should be able to take the stitches out tomorrow," Molly, the ICU nurse, had said during her last check.

"It's incredible," Laura has said, to which Molly had just nodded.

What was more incredibly was the fact that Clint didn't appear to have any adverse reaction to receiving another blood type. The only tangible symptom was Clint running a fever slightly higher than normal, but given that there was no sign of infection around the wound, it had to be attributed to the serum mitigating the reaction between the different Rh proteins.

At some point, Natasha had asked point blank if Clint's superhealing was permanent, but the staff, Laura included, had all shaken their heads. Clint's body wasn't manufacturing the serum, so once his blood cells had attacked all of Steve's, he'd be back to his normal healing abilities.

Now, Clint's gaze lolled over to her, but before he could say anything, he refocused on the door just as Natasha recognized Tony's distinctive footfalls in the hallway.

"H'y," Clint said with a wide grin as floor nurse Luca pushed Steve's bed through the door, Tony trailing not far behind.

"Wha'ppened to you?" he asked, staring in Steve's general direction.

"'matronic w'lves," Steve said with a slight slur.

"AIM," Tony continued. "But their base is toast now, thanks to the Eyepatch."

Clint nodded but his eyes were losing focus. "Huh." He blinked hard and they stared at the same space again. "Don't remember."

"That's okay," Laura was quick to say as she rested her hand on Clint's. "We'll tell you everything when you'll a little more awake."

Clint nodded absently again but this time, his eyes didn't leave Steve. His expression morphed into confusion, creating a thick furrow in his brow.

"Later," Laura said again, which succeeded in relaxing the tension in Clint's posture.

"How're'u feeling?" Steve then asked, sitting up slightly in his bed.

"Floaty. But otherwise a-oooookay," Clint drawled, throwing up the sign for good measure. "I think 'm going back to sleep," he said a second later, and true to his word, his head slid back against his pillow and his eyes slipped closed.

"Now you've seen him, Captain," Luca said as he kicked off the brakes on Steve's bed and stepped backward. "Let's get you back to your room."

"You know," Tony said, tightening his grip on the footboard of Steve's bed, keeping it from moving. "It'd be a lot easier if you just let them stay in the same room."

"Sir, they're two completely different levels of care. I—"

"What number?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Leave Steve—" whose head had slipped back against his own pillow in the throes of sleep "—here and ask your supervisor what number it will take to get the two of them here together, and I'll have my office send over a check."

"Sir—"

Laura wasn't one to condone Tony throwing around money, but Steve and Clint sharing a room seemed by far like the best option. They'd be running between the two rooms on separate floors, distantly managing two regimes, whereas here… well, everything would be simpler.

"I will ask," he finally said. "But I make no guarantees."

"We appreciate it."

With that, Luca left the room, leaving Natasha, Tony and Laura to watch over their sleeping family members.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Day 18: "I Can't See"_. Clint goes missing. Natasha will stop at nothing to get him back.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	7. Day 18: "I Can't See"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 18: "I Can't See"._ Clint goes missing. Natasha will stop at nothing to get him back.

It had been four days since Clint had disappeared, and Natasha had barely slept. In fact, it was up to her, she wouldn't have slept at all, but her body had other plans. Sometime today… yesterday?... she'd jolted awake when someone brushed her shoulder.

Steve.

"I'd suggest you grab forty in your quarters, but I know you won't listen," he said, stepping out of range of the knife she'd brandished and sliding a steaming cup of coffee down the table.

She gulped it down, ignoring how it burned her throat.

"Anything?"

Steve shook his head.

Natasha slammed the mug against the table, sending scalding hot coffee sloshing everywhere. "How can there be nothing?"

"We'll find him, Natasha." He reached out and grabbed her shoulder comfortingly.

She bit back her response; in her experience, life didn't work like that. When she looked up, she was surprised by the steely determination in Steve's face. He actually believed what he'd said. It shouldn't have surprised her—just showed how off her game she was.

She pushed back from the table in a screech of metal. "I'm going to investigate the garage again." The garage Clint had been abducted from. He'd been seen going in after a meeting at SHIELD, but had never left. According to the cameras, no one else had either. His car was still there, locked, but he had vanished.

"Natasha," Steve said softly, but she was gone.

* * *

It took three more days until JARVIS got a lead. Natasha, running on nothing but caffeine and vending machine snacks, had acquired a motorcycle and was peeling out of the Tower within seconds of the alert. She ignored the slap of wind against her face, the bite of tears in her eyes.

This was it. She was getting him back.

She left a trail of bodies in her wake at the Hydra base, following one's last words to the lab.

The door offered little resistance, and there he was.

He strapped to a table, a thick wrapping around his eyes. He didn't look over as she entered. They'd taken his hearing aids.

When she got closer, his head turned toward her.

"Tasha?" he rasped out. His voice was thin and reedy, what she could see of his face scraped and bloody.

She took his hand, turning slightly so she could see the door, and tapped out _yes_ in his palm.

"Can't see, Tasha, can't see," Clint began to mutter on a loop, becoming more and more panicked. "Dunno what they did, can't see, Tasha. Can't see."

 _Blindfold_ , she tapped out.

He didn't stop his muttering and her heart, already barely beating, stopped. She forced herself to remain calm, however, as she reached up with one hand and slid off the wrapping.

His eyes were red and swollen, _scratched_ almost, barely cracked open. Through the slits, she saw him focus on her.

"Tasha," he breathed, wrapping his fingers around hers for a split second, before he went slack.

She lunged forward, fingers poking into his neck. He was still breathing, but barely.

Pulling a knife from her thigh, she sliced through the blood-encrusted straps, then yanked what remained of his shirt open before dragging her knuckles down his sternum.

Clint shot up, hands going for her weapon, which she held out of reach.

 _"It's me,"_ she said in Russian, tapping it on the table in Morse code, and he relaxed. Slightly. "Can you walk?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation. Still, Natasha remained close as he slid off the table, knees shaking once, before holding their ground.

"Gun," he said, holding out his hand.

Without question, she handed over her spare. Clint ratcheted in a bullet, then stepped forward. His knees buckled slightly and Natasha ducked under him, coming up with his arm slung over her shoulder.

 _"Stay with me,"_ she tapped as they shuffled down the hallway.

"Long?"

"Week."

She didn't have time to consider everything they'd done to him in that time. It had been the subject of her nightmares in the few snatches of sleep she'd been forced to grab.

They turned the corner to find two soldiers approaching. Like a well-oiled machine, she and Clint raised their weapons, each taking out the person in front of them.

Then Clint collapsed forward. Barely missing a step, Natasha slung him over her shoulders, groaning as she absorbed his weight, and caught his weapon before it hit the ground.

Some thought firing two weapons at the same time was movie magic. They hadn't been trained in the Red Room.

A short time later, she was stepping on grass instead of concrete, surrounded by dark skies instead of walls. She walked another safe distance before she leaned Clint against a tree. In that second, exhaustion crashed into her and she crumpled down beside him, activating her emergency beacon in the process.

She stayed awake, scanning the area around them at a predetermined interval, guns trained at any one approaching, until she heard a familiar whine and a flash of red and gold.

She lowered her weapons as Tony landed next to them, flipping up his faceplate.

"You okay, Nat?" he asked.

She nodded once, then upon seeing a flash of red and blue behind Tony, gave into her body's need for sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Alt 4 (Day 19 Replacement): Identity Reveal._ Per Alex's orders, Winn (Supergirl) is put through elementary self-defense training. Post-Chapter One of [More Than A Redshirt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25772644/chapters/62594029).
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	8. Day 20: Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 20: Betrayal_. Steve and Clint are assigned a long undercover op not long after the Battle of New York, and as the days wear on, Clint becomes concerned Steve's grasp on reality is slipping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This scene was gutted from another permanently unfinished work. Steve (alias Nick) and Clint (alias Paul) are sent deep undercover not long after the Battle of New York, trying to bring down Alexander McQueen, one of the major crime bosses in the area. Natasha gets pulled in as Steve/Nick's girlfriend when one of McQueen's men sees them hanging out at his place—at which point, Steve and co realize McQueen has his crew under extreme surveillance. As the op draws on and Steve works his way through the ranks of the organization, he starts to not act like himself, leading Clint to wonder if he can no longer differentiate the parts of his life. In the fic, there would be like 80k words before this showing Steve slipping bit by bit, all the while insisting he's still in control, leading to this scene.
> 
> Please put yourself in that mindset, otherwise Steve is going to seem incredibly out of character. Also note that this is from Clint's perspective, so we don't have the whole story right away.

When Clint came to, he found himself in a dimly lit room. He felt a hard plank behind him, beneath his arms, and knew he was secured to an old wooden chair. He yanked at his bonds, but they held fast.

"You're awake."

Clint looked up when he heard Steve speak. The supersoldier was sitting a few feet away, elbows digging into his knees, head hanging between his shoulders. He was making eye contact with Clint through a craned neck, revealing nothing but ice in Steve's eyes.

Clint didn't say anything, waiting to see how Steve was going to play this.

With a hitched inhale, Steve stood and walked behind Clint, resting his chin on Clint's shoulder. "Traitor," he hissed directly into Clint's ear. He smacked the side of Clint's head as he straightened up. "How long have you been working for SHIELD?"

Clearly his cover was blown, but was Steve's?

"Nick, I don't even know what that is," Clint began, letting the words tumbling out of his mouth, as if he was truly trying to convince his friend. If there was a hint of real desperation there, it'd only serve to further his lie.

"DON'T LIE TO ME!" Clint saw Steve's raised hand and barely had time to brace himself before the back of it connected with the side of his face. His head whipped around and his teeth tore a gash in his cheek. Clint was well aware of Steve's full strength so he knew Steve was holding back, at least at some level, but when he glanced up, spitting out a glob of blood, he saw no sympathy, no recognition, no emotion in Steve's expression.

"I'm not," he pleaded. "I'm an EMT. I work for Manhattan General, mostly night shifts. I'm on the job fifty hours a week. I wouldn't have time to work for SHIELD, even if I did know what it was!"

Steve shook his head slowly and, when he looked up, Clint's heart skipped a beat. There was true anguish in his friend's eyes. "All those years," Steve began, scrubbing at his eye socket with the palm of his hand. "I thought I knew you. Guess I was wrong."

"Nick, please!" Clint shouted, throwing himself forward, but the heavy chair resisted any forward motion. "You do know me!"

Steve exhaled loudly and crouched down in front of Clint's chair. "As a tribute to the man I once knew, I'll give it to you straight. McQueen wants you dead—I convinced him to give me a chance to talk to you first. I'm throwing you a line here, Paul. Tell McQueen what you told your new friends at SHIELD, and he'll let you live."

Clint was scanning his friend's face, his gestures, his slightest ticks, looking for a sign of which option he should choose. "I don't have anything to tell!" he shouted, trying to buy more time.

"You have thirty minutes to consider his offer," Steve stated, as if Clint hadn't spoken. He stood then patronizingly patted the top of Clint's head, a look of utter distain on his face. "The choice is yours," he stated as he slammed the room's only door closed behind him.

* * *

Clint did his best to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut and yanked furiously on his bonds as he replayed his conversation with Steve. There were no clues, no hints about the mission's current status, that he could decipher. He pulled again on the thick straps binding him to the chair and swore loudly as they refused to give.

He'd been in worse situations than this and managed to make it out alright. However, he'd either had Natasha, who knew his playbook inside and out, or had been working solo, where he could throw caution into the wind in order to get out alive. Now, he was totally dependent on whatever Steve had planned... assuming Steve was still playing for their team. He hated himself the moment that thought slipped into his head, but it was the truth. He'd seen it happen to his fair share of agents, getting in too deep, conflating reality and the mission, getting so engrossed in their job that they can't see a way out.

Suddenly a red light flickered in the corner and Clint squinted at it, able to make out a security camera. Clint flipped it off with both hands, realizing his escape options were getting more and more limited.

He let his head fall onto his chest and reevaluated his current situation. Either choice was bad. If he agreed to "talk", there was no guarantee they'd lead him out of the cell, before he was required to fabricate some tale for Steve to pass up the line. Same concern if he refused.

He heard the door creak open and looked up to find Steve entering.

"McQueen is tired of waiting," Steve announced as he locked the door behind him. "Make your decision."

Clint remained silent for a moment longer and opted for the "truth"; it had the greatest chance of buying him some time. "I'll talk," he said quietly. "I'm so sorry, Nick. They just needed a little information. I figured we could both benefit from your new deal."

Steve's face fractured. "I would have taken care of you, Paul. You know that. But this," he waved theatrically, "is inexcusable."

Clint saw a flash of silver, and suddenly Steve was training a gun at his face. Clint literally stopped breathing. Trust wasn't an easy thing for him to give, but mission after mission (for both SHIELD and the Avengers), Steve had earned it wholeheartedly. These past few months though, with Steve being increasingly cagey and deceptive, acting more like Paul Grant than Steve Rogers, Clint didn't know where he landed anymore, and his body reacted to this like Steve was a real threat.

"I'm going to unlock your right hand," Steve said, ratcheting the slide of his handgun and chambering a bullet. "I will use this if I have to."

"What's he offering you, Nick?" Clint spat in a last ditch attempt to get some ground on the situation. "What's worth our entire friendship?"

Steve shook his head. "What friendship? You ruined that when you tattled on me to the feds." He quickly unlocked the right cuff and tossed the key into Clint's lap, before taking a quick step back. "Unlock yourself, then stand up."

"Put these on." He tossed a set of handcuffs to Clint, who obediently slid them around his wrists. Not ideal, but he could slip them if he had to.

"Now walk." Steve pushed the gun into Clint's back and shoved him out of the room.

"C'mon Nick. We can work this out," Clint continued as they stepped out of the room into a long hallway. Steve nodded to the guard outside Clint's former prison and pushed Clint down the hall.

"There's nothing to work out," Steve hissed as he continued to manhandle Clint down the hall and into a small space that looked like it had at one point been a pay phone nook. Clint instantly saw that the camera that should have been trained on the space had been adjusted so it focused more on the hallway.

"The hell is going on?" he mumbled without moving his lips, trusting Steve's superhearing to pick it up, and hoping that it was more Steve than Nick who did. When he looked back at Steve, relief surged through him as he saw Steve (true, friend _Steve_ ) staring back at him.

"They took Natasha. Don't worry. She could easily get out of there if she needed to," Steve explained, quickly freeing Clint from his bonds. "But she's trying to save my cover. They were going to rough her up if I didn't get answers from you. I had to play it straight, sorry man." Steve grabbed Clint's jaw and quickly examined it. "Hope I didn't get you too bad."

Clint shook his head. "I've had worse."

Steve pulled something from his pocket, accidentally (or purposefully) keeping it hidden in his large hand. "I have a plan. It'll save my cover but you're out for the count… Do you trust me?"

Clint couldn't help thinking of what Steve had said at the start of the mission, how easily he said that he trusted Clint with his life. The events of the past few months quickly surged back, tarnishing that memory, bringing pause to should have been an instantaneous decision.

He looked up at Steve and saw only his teammate, his friend, looking back. There was no sign of the stoic, troubled Nick.

"Yes," he said.

Steve nodded in relief as he pressed his lips together. "Sorry in advance."

Clint's hand was already moving but before he could brace himself, something embedded itself in the side of his neck. He felt the sharp prick and knew it had to be a syringe, but filled with what contents he wasn't sure.

Before he slid into unconsciousness for the second time that day, he couldn't help but hope that he'd made the right decision, but as pain exploded in his shoulder, lighting up nerves from his toes to his brain, his last coherent thought was that he had made a rather large mistake.

* * *

Clint was jolted rather rudely into consciousness. His body was rolling to the right, but was stopped by a set of straps across his body. He struggled, until he heard a familiar voice chastising him for it.

He opened his eyes to see Natasha, whole and uninjured sans a bloody lip, applying pressure to his shoulder. Behind her, he saw an assortment of medical supplies and realized they were in an ambulance. Except they weren't moving, which begged the question to why he'd thought he was... or why he thought he was strapped down. He was sitting upright, reclined slightly, two IV bags running into his elbow.

"You back with me?" Natasha asked, pressing the padding tighter against his shoulder.

Clint nodded. "Happened?"

"He shot you, looks like, dumped your body in the alley." She looked up at him. "What happened in there?"

"Cover blown."

He smacked his lips and she elbowed closer a plastic water bottle, which he downed, without removing her hands from his shoulder.

"Yours or his?"

"Both." Clint cleared his throat. "Where is he?"

"He's gone. His tracker is off."

"How did—"

"Tetrodotoxin B. Convinced them you were dead and helped them dispose of your body. Flipped on your emergency tracker, which was how I found you."

"How bad?" Clint tilted his head at his shoulder, which must have been numbed to oblivion because he couldn't feel anything past his neck. At least, he hoped it was painkillers and not permanent damage.

"You'll shoot again. Hold?" she asked. Clint nodded and brought his right hand over to hold the gauze in place while she prepped some Quik-Clot.

"I have to go back," he said. Then his back arched and he let out a muffled scream as she pressed the sponge against his shoulder.

"You can't. You don't get this taken care of, you could die."

He wrapped his hand loosely around her wrist. "Nat. He's hurt bad. His cover is blown. Even Captain America is going to need our help getting out of this one."

"Coulson's team is on it."

He tightened his grip ever so slightly. "It's still him, Nat. I know it. And he needs us."

Natasha was quiet for a long moment before she swore under her breath. Then, she looked back up at Clint and nodded.

"Stims," Clint rasped, to which Natasha gestured to the bag beside her while she worked on securing the sponge to Clint's shoulder.

Easily in Clint's reach, he dug through the bag until he found a syringe of green-tinged liquid, which he knew was a borderline dangerous cocktail of painkillers and stims, designed to fully numb the pain and get an agent back in the field. He popped the cap off and injected it into his leg without hesitation.

It washed through his body not long after, doing everything it promised. He barely waited until Natasha was done before disconnecting himself from the various equipment and throwing his legs off the gurney.

"C'mon. Let's go save Steve."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Part of the previous 80k words has Natasha being hurt by Steve-as-Nick's actions, which is why she's hesitant here. Given that this is set not long after BONY, she also has known Clint for longer and has way more trust in his instincts, which is why she allows herself to be swayed back at the end.
> 
> Up next, our final _Supergirl_ prompt: _Alt 1 (Day 21 Replacement): Truth Serum_. Part 2 of _Day 5: "Take Me Instead"_. Winn is sure they want him to retrieve the lost data. What they actually want, is something totally different.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	9. Day 23: "Don't Look"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 23: "Don't Look"_. Natasha and team fight to rescue a little girl from Hydra's clutches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Endgame_ AU where everyone survives (even Steve, though he isn't in this story). Wanda missing was meant to dovetail into the premise of _WandaVision_ , though now that's been jossed by the latest episodes.

The first time it'd happened, Natasha thought it was a memory.

She was in a sparely decorated room with just one bed and a dresser (bolted to the ground, drawers unable to fully open). A small window way up high let in a scant amount of light. She was cuffed to the bed, waiting for her handler to come free her.

She was scared, shaking, biting back panic as the bolt of the metal door disengaged.

Natasha shot upright in her own bed, breathing hard.

She scrambled for her weapon as she heard pounding on her door, before it was kicked open. Clint burst through, gun up and moving steadily around the room. Natasha lowered her weapon and sagged back against her pillow.

"Nightmare?" Clint asked, to which Natasha could only nod.

When it happened again the next night, it was the same room, same set-up, same handcuffs, but Natasha somehow knew this was different. This wasn't her. This was someone else.

"I'm getting someone else's dreams," she had announced the next morning at breakfast.

Tony looked up from the cereal his forehead was a split second away from falling into, and squinted at her. "You're what?"

"Getting someone else's dreams."

Bruce put down his book and looked over at her. "Go on."

After she told them the entire story, they threw some ideas around, but settled on wanting her to sleep in the lab connected to an EEG machine.

She hesitated, until Clint knocked his knee against hers, silently telling her he'd be with her the entire time.

Natasha had nodded, which was how she found herself in a hospital bed in the middle of Tony's lab, with electrodes stuck to her head. Clint had pulled in a cot and positioned it right next to her bed.

"Now, just go to sleep," Tony said, as if it was that simple.

Natasha read a little, checked her phone, but couldn't shake the eerie sensation of Tony and Bruce, as well-intentioned as they were, watching her. But eventually, her body wore down and her eyes slipped closed.

This time she was being dragged down the hallway, carted forward by her shoulders, her legs dragging against the ground. Two men were speaking above her in a language Natasha didn't recognize, but sounded Slavic in origin.

She struggled against their grip, but that only caused the pain in her body to worsen, so she could do nothing but let her head fall against her chest as the men continued to drag her away.

Natasha jerked back into consciousness, separating at least three electrodes.

Tony and Bruce were staring at her, wide-eyed.

"What's it mean?" she asked desperately.

They shook their heads. "We have no idea."

They had her sleep there the next night, but had constructed a device around her bed: four pieces of metal set at 45-degree angles that were connected to each other, that would somehow capture, and hopefully identify, the signal Natasha was somehow receiving.

She was back in the room that night, crying quietly, the hand not handcuffed to the bedpost covered in blood.

"She's getting worse," Natasha stated when she woke. "We have to find her."

"We might have something," Tony said after conferring with Bruce. Apparently, the device had worked and had isolated a unique signature of the signal.

"Wanda," Tony had said almost immediately, but Bruce had shaken his head and pointed out the slight differences in energy.

"Then Hydra has turned someone else," Clint said with disgust as Natasha's stomach sank.

"Can you trace it?"

"We'll do our best. It might mean one more night here," Tony said apologetically.

"If that's what it takes."

Natasha hurried out of the room, dialing the emergency number she'd taken off the grid for Wanda, who was hiding out on her own until the frenzy around the Accords settled down. By design, none of the team knew where she was, only that she was still alive based on the bi-weekly check-ins.

Sadly, there was no answer.

"It's an emergency," she said. "Hydra. Call me back."

Little did she know, Wanda would never return that call.

That night, Natasha lay in her bed in the lab, staring at the dropped ceiling. She knew she needed to sleep, but she was too tense to drop off. If all went well, in the morning, they would have the location, and then they would go in, guns blazing, to rescue the girl.

If she could just go to sleep.

She forced herself not to attack as Clint's hand slipped into hers. "Just relax," he said drowsily. "It'll happen when it happens."

She nodded and focused on taking deep breaths.

She was in a dark room, strapped to a table, an overhead light blasting into her face. A man in surgical gear leaned over her, grinning.

Natasha shot upright with a cry. "Did you get it?" she demanded, yanking off the electrodes.

Tony flipped around the tablet. "Aven-jet is ready now."

Natasha was heading up to the roof while he was still speaking.

* * *

The coordinates led to an underground bunker outside of St. Louis. In stealth mode, they'd landed a half-mile away and had decided that Natasha and Clint would go in first. Bruce would monitor video surveillance from the 'jet, while Tony was on deck just in case.

She and Clint crept into the base, following the device Tony had created to track the remnants of the magic. It led them in circles once or twice before it ended in a cell. Even from the outside, Natasha recognized it.

Clint had the lock picked in an instant, and Natasha hurried in, almost abandoning her training in her haste.

A small, dark-haired girl lay on the bed, a spotted bandage wrapped from her arm to wrist.

She looked up weakly as Natasha approached. "You came," she said, voice low and unsteady.

"Absolutely."

It was only then that Natasha realized the girl had been speaking in Russian.

 _"We're going to get you out of here,"_ she said, holstering her weapon and scooping the girl off the bed. The girl let out a soft cry as she was shifted, then wrapped her good arm around Natasha's neck.

Clint stepped backward, still keeping an eye on the door, and handed over a slim circle of metal.

 _"To keep them from tracking you,"_ Natasha explained and the girl allowed it to be slid over her head.

 _"This feels too easy,"_ Clint said to Natasha in Arabic.

It did. But if for once in her life, it was, Natasha wasn't going to argue. Still, she remained tense and alert as they crept back out the hallway.

They almost made it in the clear but at the very end of the hallway, someone rounded the corner. Clint fired before Natasha could, a killshot. Natasha reached out and tucked the girl's head in as they stepped over the body.

 _"Don't look,"_ she told the girl, who hurriedly buried her head further into Natasha's neck.

They heard footsteps approaching from the other direction and took off, abandoning stealth to take the emergency steps up and out of the compound.

"Are you sure she's clean?" Tony demanded as they sprinted up the ramp of the quinjet. Bruce was at the controls, running through the pre-flight checks.

"Scan her," Natasha said.

Tony raised a repulsor, and the girl flinched, her good hand coming out defensively.

Natasha quickly wrapped her hand around the girl's. _"He's a friend,"_ she said.

It took a minute, but the girl nodded, then slacked back against Natasha.

"She's clean," Tony reported not long after. "Let's get out of here."

Clint hoisted up the ramp, and then they were off.

A few minutes in, Natasha felt a patch of wet forming on her uniform and looked down to see the girl crying.

 _"You came for me,"_ she mumbled, tracing the SHIELD logo on Natasha's shirt with her good hand.

Natasha's heart broke as she tightened her grip on the girl. _"How could I not?"_

The girl looked up at her, wiping her nose on her arm. _"Safe?"_ she asked, hesitantly, like she didn't want to know the answer.

Natasha gently placed the girl's uninjured hand over her heart, so she could read Natasha's steady heartbeat and know she was telling the truth, and nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Day 24: Memory Loss_. Bucky Barnes post- _TWS_. A one-shot from 2014 I never posted, which will be presented in its original format with only minor grammatical fixes.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	10. Day 24: Memory Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 24: Memory Loss_. Post- _TWS_ , the asset goes to the Smithsonian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this as a tag to the end-credits scene for _The Winter Soldier_ , but didn't think it was strong enough to publish on its own. In hindsight, it was, so I dug it out of the story graveyard for this prompt. With the exception of a few grammatical fixes, it's presented in its original format.

His hair was short again, spiked away from his forehead. Clean since he'd ducked his head under the faucet at a local gas station and scrubbed it with cheap hand soap. The eye makeup had been lost during that process too. He wasn't proud of it, but he'd broken into a truck that was parked overnight and stolen a new seat of clothes, including a pair of gloves. Baseball cap carefully shielding his face, he'd strolled straight into the exhibit, forcing himself to stand as straight as possible, to walk with his shoulders back like he had every right to be here.

He'd always been good at disappearing, blending in, becoming invisible. Changing his whole look meant nothing—it was just a fact of his messed-up life.

 _Bucky_ …

The name meant nothing to him. Yet, when his target had said it, he'd felt something stir inside him, something that hadn't moved in a very long time. And he'd hesitated.

But it was too late. His target had fallen.

He normally felt nothing after successfully completing a mission, just the same emptiness he had had heading into it. But this time it was different. Watching his target fall felt… just… _wrong_.

He was jumping before he even realized what he was doing, his metal hand closing around the reinforced collar of the red, white and blue suit and dragging his target to the surface.

Saving the object of his mission felt just as wrong as killing him. So he walked away, his head spinning.

_I'm with you to the end of the line._

He needed answers and not the lies the doctors would give him—the lies they had always fed him. So he disappeared.

It had been a few days since SHIELD had been taken down. Stories of an injured Captain America being loaded into a medical helicopter were splashed over every inch of the omnipresent television screens. One of the stories had opened with a quick summary of his target's life, punctuated by glimpses of the remaining memorabilia in the Smithsonian.

He had stolen a car and headed there immediately, only pausing at the gas station to alter his appearance. His metal hand was almost completely hidden under the thick leather jacket and, as long as he kept his glove pulled over it, there was little chance of it being recognized. His other arm was healing nicely, at a rate faster than most. It was completely set, though still very weak, so he no longer needed the piece of wood he had lashed to it.

He'd pulled a credit card from the wallet, making conversation and smiling widely so the woman at the ticket counter wouldn't ask to see his ID. He'd latched on to an elderly woman in a wheelchair who wasn't able to walk through the metal detector and made sure his metal arm was always near the wheelchair when they were wanding him.

 _Shattered radius_ , he'd said when the device screeched over his entire arm. _Medical reconstruction._

The guard had shrugged and waved him through.

And there it was. The Captain America exhibit. Complete with a monument to Cap's fallen childhood friend, Bucky Barnes.

 _Bucky._ That was what his target had called him.

But Bucky had been born in 1917. That would make him an elderly man. He glanced at the back of his flesh hand and saw no wrinkles, no arthritis. It was not the hand of a geriatric.

He'd snorted. There was no way he could be Bucky. It wasn't physically possible. He was sure of it.

 _…his plane was found next to the Tesseract just three years ago,_ the announcer intoned, _just months before the Battle of New York. Steve Rogers' frozen body was pulled from the wreckage and resuscitated. Within a month, he was completely healthy, was released from SHIELD's custody, and allowed to restart his life._

It wasn't possible. Steve Rogers had been born in 1918; he should be almost on his deathbed, not looking like he'd just graduated college.

His head was spinning. Everything he thought he'd known, everything he was _sure_ was true was... not.

"Few people understand just how important a role Bucky Barnes played in Steve Rogers' life."

He spun around to see a name-tagged docent standing next to Bucky Barnes' memorial and speaking to whomever was walking by.

"They were more than just childhood friends," the docent continued, despite the fact no one was stopping. "Bucky looked after Steve: in school, protecting him from the bullies who thought he was an easy target; after his mother passed away and he was left alone; even in the army after Steve was given the serum, Barnes made sure his friend's newfound abilities weren't being taken advantage of."

He pushed his way over. "Excuse me."

The docent turned, practically bouncing with excitement that someone was interested in his dissertation. "Yes young man?" Ignoring his sharp wince, the docent asked, "What can I do for you?"

"Did Barnes"—the name felt funny on his lips and his tongue struggled to make the correct sounds—"have any distinguishing features? Birthmarks or the like?"

The docent's face tightened and it was obvious he was barely restraining himself from rolling his eyes. "You're one of _those_ conspiracy theorists, aren't you?"

He blinked. "I'm not sure what you mean."

The docent sighed loudly. "When that lunatic"—again, painfully oblivious to his look of discomfort—"attacked Director Fury, his mask slipped off. Someone in a nearby restaurant caught the whole thing on video." The docent ignored his sharp inhale and continued, "It's not good quality but it went viral after someone thought they identified the assailant as Bucky Barnes, reincarnated. No one's confirmed or denied it so the cause is only gaining momentum."

He shook his head. "No, sir," he forced out the polite term, "nothing like that. I'm wondering how we'll be able to identify him with his mask off. After all, they didn't catch him, right?"

"It's only a matter of time," the docent said confidently.

He forced an inhale through clenched teeth. "How will we be able to identify the Winter Soldier?" he repeated as levelly as he could manage.

The docent scowled then realizing he meant business, answered. "The army keeps very detailed records in case bodies came home without dog tags. According to Barnes' last army physical, he had a circular birthmark above his left hip. This would most likely be his most distinguishing feature. However that won't do you much good unless everyone decides to suddenly go around with their shirts off."

"No," he conceded, "I guess it doesn't. Thank you for your time," he said as he walked off.

"Wait! Don't you want to hear about how Barnes realized he wanted to join the army?"

"Not today." He walked as fast as humanly possible toward the exit.

The birthmark was there—he had seen it while changing in the gas station restrooms.

But that meant he was Bucky Barnes. Also, that Bucky Barnes just tried to kill his best friend.

Once he was outside the Smithsonian, he broke into a run, not caring where he went, as long as he was putting a great distance between himself and the exhibit. Between himself and Steve Rogers, whose condition was still unknown.

So he ran, and kept running until his legs buckled, crudely dumping him on the side of the road. And he laid there, his chest heaving, his lungs burning, his mind racing.

Hours later, he finally pulled himself into a sitting position, rolling his metal shoulder joint to loosen it, also lighting massaging his still healing forearm.

He knew what he needed to do to get some answers. So he hauled himself to his feet and headed back the way he'd come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Day 25: Car Accident_. Steve ( _Stranger Things_ ) and Hopper are run off the road.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	11. Day 26: Recovery (Time Loop Part 2 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 26: Recovery (Time Loop Pt 2 of 2)_. An injured blond tries to convince the asset it's worth saving.

The asset comes to strangling a blond-haired man. His face was bruised, bloody, but he didn't seem to be fighting back.

The asset didn't understand why. The man was strong enough. Probably could have given it a run for its money.

"Come back to me again, Buck," the man mumbled around a mouthful of blood. "I know you're in there."

"Again?" The word shook the asset to its core, for reasons it couldn't explain. But then, it blocked off the uncertainty, the concern, refocused on its mission. The man was trying to unsettle the asset. It was a tactic. The asset wasn't going to let him succeed.

"You were out. Living at the…" the man gasped as the asset tightened its grip around his throat. "Tower... with us."

The asset shook its head. "It was a sim. To break me. Make me comply."

The man gasped again, but it wasn't in response to anything the asset did. In fact, it hadn't changed his grip or the pressure on the man's throat at all.

"It was real. You were here. Jarvis, play footage."

"Captain," a British voice said, and the asset kept its grip on the blond while he quickly scanned the room for the new body.

"Do it."

On the far wall, footage of the asset sitting on a couch appeared. It was wearing soft clothes, and eating popcorn. It was smiling as it threw some at the blond. A redhead had her legs curled up on its. A dark-haired man was holding a remote and demanding everyone's attention. A sandy-haired man threw some brightly colored spheres at him.

There were so much more. The asset and the blond-haired man sparring, making food, wrapping gifts. Sitting on the couch reading. Down in the lab with the dark-haired man—but it wasn't painful. In fact, it looked like the asset was having fun.

"No," the asset pulled away from the images, inadvertently releasing its target. "Not real. Sims."

"They're real, Buck," the blond said, pushing himself up on an elbow and spitting out a gob of blood. "Deep down… you know they are too."

The door burst open and the asset whirled around. It's the sandy-haired man, wielding a bow.

"Stan'down," the blond rasped.

"Don't know if I can do that, Cap."

 _Cap_.

_Steve._

Pain shot through the asset's head, and it grasped at his temples to try to relieve it.

"Barton, stand down!" the blond shouted, though it was hazy over the ringing in the asset's ears.

His programming cut through the haze, spewing the parameters of his mission.

 _Target: Steven G Rogers. Objective: Kill_.

He couldn't disobey his orders. In one quick move, the asset pulled a knife from his thigh and thrust it toward the mission's gut.

Then, something electric lit up his spine and his world was lost in a show of lights.

* * *

It woke in a hospital. It felt the padded cuffs around his wrists and ankles, heard the soft hum of electricity emanating from them. Hydracuffs. Unbreakable. It'd tried.

It needed to bide its time. Someone would open them, to change them, thinking it was unconscious. And then it'd strike.

It then heard a soft hitching of breath, one it somehow recognized, and its eyes were open before it realized what was happening.

The blond-haired man was sitting beside the asset's bed. His face was bruised, one eye swollen shut. One arm was in a cast and sling while the other wrapped around his abdomen.

"Buck?" the man said hesitantly.

The asset jerked against the cuffs and spat at him.

A nurse hurried into the room, wielding a syringe.

"No!" the man shouted, but it was too late.

The nurse slid the syringe into the asset's IV line, and the drugs pulled it under again.

* * *

It woke again, finding the blond sitting by the side of his bed.

"You with us now, Buck?"

It tore at its cuffs, straining so hard it was rising out of its bed.

"Calm down, Buck. It's okay. You're okay."

It spat something out in Russian, pulled harder on the cuffs.

"C'mon Buck."

The nurse stormed in, again carrying a syringe, but this time the man stopped her, his breath hitching as he did so.

"Let him try," he ordered.

"Try what?" the asset spat out.

"You can break out of it, Buck," the blond man said, rising stiffly to his feet. "You did it before, you can do it again."

It didn't understand what it was supposed to do, so it spewed every derogatory thing it could think of. The blond man stood stoically, absorbing them all.

"It takes more than that to scare me away," he said. Then hesitantly, he added, "End of the line and all that." He looked up after, clearly expecting a reaction.

The asset cursed at him again, then slackened into its bed, forcing its heart to beat slower, his breathing to relax. If they thought it was dying, they might act out. It could strike.

"He's faking," the man said. "Don't get closer."

"Captain…" the nurse replied, warning, threatening.

The asset felt something uncertain swell within it at that tone, and an image of someone smaller, frailer shot into its brain for a split second.

"C'mon Buck. Fight."

"Captain, I must sedate him."

"No." The man's face was pale now, his hand pressing tighter against his abdomen.

The nurse turned her attention to him. "Captain, did you tear your stitches?"

It wasn't trained to feel things. But it was. Concern, fear, older hospitals, smaller rooms, worse equipment. Struggling to breathe— _"This might be the one that does me in," a gap-toothed boy gasped. "Not on my watch," it had said. "Now scoot over. You're freezing."_

Pain ripped through its skull, and its hands went to his head again, trying to keep the bones together.

"Buck!" the blond shouted, before the sound of something crashing, glass shattering. "Stop trying to sedate him!"

"I have my orders, Captain."

Orders.

_"You get your orders?"_

_"The 107_ _th_ _."_

_"You read to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?"_

_"Hell no. But that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight… I'm following him."_

What was happening.

"Buck!"

One word popped into its head, offering a refuse from the pain.

"Steve?" it gasped.

"Yeah, Buck. It's me." Steve didn't sound much better. He was hurt. Needed a doctor—

"No!" Steve shouted, before it felt a warmth in its IV line, and it was pulled under again.

* * *

This time, it woke to see the blond once again sitting by its bedside. His head was pillowed against his arms, which were resting next to its right shin.

It could think about the blond—Steve—and its head didn't explode. And then something shifted in his brain so violently, it closed his eyes to abate the nausea.

And it remembered. All of it. The sims, the missions, hurting Steve, breaking out again. Hydra, the 40s, the Avengers—his family.

It went on and on; he didn't know how long.

When it was done, it must have cried out, for Steve sat upright in a second, swiping sleep out of his eyes.

"Bucky," he said happily, before his reaction was tempered. "Is it you?"

It—he—nodded.

"Do you remember you?"

He nodded. "I'm sorry, Steve. So sorry."

Then, he froze. This could be another sim. Hydra could have found him again, after his last failure, stuck him in the chair.

"Is this real?" he demanded.

Steve nodded. "It is, Buck."

"Prove it to me," he said, almost panicked. "Show me this is real. That it isn't a sim. Tell me something only the real Steve would know."

Steve thought for a long second, then recited a fact that had never made it into any history book that Bucky—as either himself or the asset—had ever seen.

And he allowed himself to provisionally relax.

He was out, he was safe.

He was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some comfort for all the hurt I've been putting Bucky through. Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Up next: _Day 27: "I Wish I'd Never Given You A Chance"_. My guess at _The Falcon and The Winter Soldier_ , which I think will have a very _Mission: Impossible - Fallout_ subplot.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	12. Day 27: "I Wish I'd Never Given You A Chance"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 27: "I Wish I'd Never Given You A Chance"_. Sam, Bucky and Sharon are tasked with escorting Zemo to trial.

Bucky ducked behind the car he was using as a shield, ejecting his spent magazine then shoving in a new one and chambering a bullet in one swift motion.

"I told you this was a bad idea!" he shouted at Sam, who was pressing himself against the same car, over Zemo who was sandwiched between them.

"You've made your point exceedingly clear," Sam retorted as he raised himself over the trunk and emptied his Steyr.

Bucky heard a sound to his right and looked over to see Zemo attempting to crawl away. Even though it wasted a bullet, he fired in front of Zemo, causing the villain to jerk backward.

He wished he could go back to four days ago, when Fury had handed him and Sam this assignment, and shoved the folder up Fury's ass. Of all the people to be protecting now, as a consultant to New SHIELD, trying to wash out some of the red in his ledger, Zemo was the last on his list.

Thanks to Sam, it was an actual list, and yes, Zemo was the last of those left alive.

Zemo needed transport from his high-security, no-electronics cell to the Accords for trial, and apparently, because he was such a high-profile figure, Fury wanted two Avengers to escort him.

Bucky had walked out of the room, Sam trailing behind him.

"You know what he did!" Bucky had shouted, spinning on his heel to face Sam and slamming his metal arm into the wall.

"He needs to face justice," Sam had responded, levelly, and with a level of conviction Bucky had come to associate with a different face.

Bucky had released a slew of curses in a multitude of languages.

"I need someone to watch my back," Sam had then said. "If you're up for it."

It was a very legitimate offer, one he could walk away from, knowing Sam wouldn't hold it against him if he did. But he couldn't.

"He sets one foot out of line, I'm shooting him myself," Bucky had growled, sticking a metal finger in Sam's face.

He hadn't waited for a response before storming away.

And now they were here. Fury had been right—another sentence that tasted like vinegar in Bucky's thoughts. Someone was after Zemo, trying to break him free to tap his genius—if that really was the correct word to be used. They'd sprung up from out of nowhere, trapping the team in a parking garage.

Agent Thirteen—Sharon—was across the aisle of the garage, but was holding her own.

Bucky and Sam… and Zemo… needed to get out of their current position. They were open to an aisle, and then the entrance on Thirteen's left, and were only a few smart moves away from being pinned down.

Bucky slid away from the car and grabbed the front of Zemo's shirt, shoving him toward Sam. "Go," he growled. "On three."

Bucky didn't wait for Sam to answer before he leaned over the car's hood and fired rapidly.

Sam swore but was gone in a flash.

After firing his last bullet, Bucky dropped back behind the car and reloaded.

That's when he heard a cry. Female. Coming from his right. Agent Thirteen.

He slid to the other side of the car and peered around its bumper.

Safely protected by a van, Zemo was standing tall, training Agent Thirteen's FNX-45 Tactical at Sam, whose Steyr was pointed down at the ground. Thirteen was crumpled on the ground, bleeding from her temple.

God damn it.

Bucky lifted his head slightly, locked onto the two men who were still firing at him, and in one quick motion rose and fired twice. The oncoming bullets stopped instantly. Knowing the attack squad was dead, Bucky then stood and stepped forward, training his gun at Zemo.

"I should have never given you a chance," he growled.

"Barnes," Sam warned, but bit off whatever he was going to say next when Zemo lifted Thirteen's pistol to point between his eyes.

"All I want is to go," Zemo said, lowering the pistol slightly, but still well within reach of squeezing off two shots at both Sam and Thirteen. "I have no additional quarrel with the two of you."

"Not going to happen," Bucky spat, forcing back memories of Siberia, of the bunker, of the fight that had torn the Avengers apart, especially the way its aftermath had weighed on Steve.

"You are not in a position to bargain."

"We'll see about that." Bucky took another step closer, and Zemo's weapon shot back up.

"Stay right there, Sergeant Barnes." Then he paused. "Or would you prefer _Asset_?" With a feral grin, Zemo began reciting the activation sequence.

Bucky just stood there, letting the words wash over him.

"Good try," he said when Zemo was done, registering the shock on his face, before he lowered his weapon and fired at Zemo's quad. It wasn't a fatal wound—not even close—but Zemo collapsed to the ground, hands clamping around his wound. Sam was on the move in an instant, grabbing Thirteen's FNX-45 as it went flying into the air, and training it on Zemo along with his Steyr.

"They didn't work," Zemo said in disbelief.

Bucky knelt down and grabbed Zemo's hands, hauling them behind his back and cuffing them with New SHIELD's magna-cuffs. Then he ripped a strip off of Zemo's jacket and wound it around the wound, cinching it tighter than he needed to at the end.

"You didn't really think they would, did you? After what you did?" He stood and trained his weapon on Zemo, then tilted his head at Thirteen.

Nodding, Sam holstered his guns and went to check on her.

"Get up," Bucky ordered. "We're taking you to trial."

"After what I did?" Zemo's tone was goading, inciting, and it took everything Bucky had to not pull the trigger right then and there.

"Especially after what you did."

Before Zemo could respond, Bucky flipped his gun around and cracked the grip into Zemo's chin.

"He still alive?" Sam asked as Thirteen began to stir.

"For now."

"You took an awfully big chance there." _Shooting him with his gun pointed at me_ , was left unsaid.

"I had it covered."

Sam glanced up at Bucky for a brief moment then nodded, before he looked down at Thirteen, who had yet to fully regain consciousness, and Zemo. "So which one do you want to carry?"

* * *

There was no trial.

"He's turning state's?" Bucky spat in disbelief, parroting what had just been relayed to him.

"We could use a man with his skill running the ops we don't have people for," Fury said.

"He's going to kill _them_! He double-crossed _us_!" He whirled to glare at Sam. "I can't be the only one who sees this!"

"It's not a suggestion, Agent Barnes."

Bucky whirled to face Fury. "I refuse to work with him. Refuse!"

"You don't have to. STRIKE will."

Bucky stormed forward and buried a metal finger in Fury's chest. "When he kills your whole squad, I _will_ hunt him down, and he _won't_ be left alive."

"Your concern is duly noted, Agent Barnes."

"I do _not_ work for you."

"Yet."

"Never, while you're employing Zemo's services."

Fury just tilted his head, neither a nod nor a headshake. "Job well done, Barnes," he then said, clearly shifting tactics.

Bucky spat out a response then stormed from the room. He heard footsteps following and whirled around to see Sam once again.

"I can't believe him."

"That's Fury for you," Sam said with a shrug.

"He _played_ us. Why aren't you more upset?"

"The way I see it, Zemo runs the deepest and darkest missions for SHIELD. He either gets killed in the process, or does a lot of good. Either way, it's a win for me."

It was reasons like that that Steve had picked Sam as his replacement. Bucky still was on the fence about marching into Zemo's cell and burying a bullet between his eyes.

Then Sam's shoulder knocked against his. "C'mon. Let's get food. I'm starving."

Without waiting for Bucky to respond, he headed off toward the exit, and without a better option, Bucky followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: our final chapter of Febuwhump (and it's a real doozy): _Day 28: "You Have To Let Me Go"_. Steve is the only thing keeping Tony from falling to his death.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	13. Day 28: "You Have To Let Me Go"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 28: "You Have To Let Me Go"_. Steve is the only thing keeping Tony from falling to his death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This segment was part of an Avengers fic that ended up shifting into _Forced Alliance_. Whatever didn't make it in there was scrapped for parts, with quite a bit of its original draft being split across multiple chapters of _On Your Six_ (the party scene, Tony setting Steve's broken hand, Tony waking up with an explosive in his arm). This chapter is based off a scene that ended up being cut from the little bit I wrote of the original story. So it was really fun to get to work it in here.

"You have to let me go," Tony said, looking up at Steve. He didn't want to die—far from it—but they were running out of viable options, what with Steve bleeding and the arc flickering. "You can save Fury. I'm almost out of juice here."

"Not gonna happen." To prove his point, Steve shifted so the hand that was holding them above a hundred foot drop had a better grip in the root. That was all that was keeping them from falling into the raging river below: one decently thick root hanging out of a scraggly looking cliffside.

* * *

A few days ago—Tony wasn't sure how many—the Avengers had attended a dinner hosted by the alphabet agencies as Fury's security team. On the way back, the car containing Steve, Tony and Fury had been run off the road. Turned out the perps had wanted Fury to disclose the location of the Intersect, which he'd refused to do.

Steve had been beaten within an inch of his life, and they'd started in on Tony too, when somehow, they'd managed to crack the casing of the arc. Things had gotten a little fuzzy then: the arc must have crackled in and out. Steve's bloody face was leaning over him, pounding on his chest, on the arc. Then Tony had woken up in a river, barely glimpsing the two guards on the bank before his head disappeared under the tow again.

It had taken everything he'd had in him to catch a rock and haul himself onto the bank. Then, in the utter absence of any other options—wandering through the wilderness hoping he didn't run into any wildlife was not a valid option, thank you—he'd opted to go back for Steve. Together, the two of them could get out of this. Or better yet, grab Fury on the way and make him call in the cavalry.

Tony had taken out a guard on the way in and stole his clothes, weapon and power bar. Considering he hadn't eaten since before the dinner who knows how many days ago, it was barely a drop in his hunger, but it was better than nothing. It was only after he'd swallowed the whole thing that he realized he should have saved some for Steve, who was far worse off on the metabolism chain.

He'd find something else for Steve, to power up his system and give them a fighting chance at escaping. As much as regretted downing the entire thing, it had given him what he needed to stay focused, and find Steve.

There hadn't been anything else useful on the guard—no phone, no walkie, no communication device of any kind. Swearing, Tony had moved on to retracing his path through the compound as best he could remember, running across a supply closet where he duct-taped the reactor case closed. It was doing as well as could be expected considering the original impact and his unplanned swim, but still, Tony could feel it wearing down. He could still feel the thrumming of it, holding back the shrapnel, but he suspected it wasn't going to be able to handle another direct hit.

Not a problem he could worry about that exact moment, however, so he'd continued down his original path, crossing a security panel, which he'd quickly rewired to send a distress signal on the SHIELD emergency bandwidth. Then, hoping that was enough, he'd set off again, eventually locating the cell Steve was being kept in.

As the door creaked open, Steve blinked up at him through two swollen eyes. "Tony?" he asked in a tone so hopeful it almost broke Tony's heart.

"Yeah, it's me." Tony fired at the metal ring connecting Steve's shackles to the wall, and they hurried out the room as fast as Steve was able. He was limping, favoring his right side, and barely moving his left arm, which meant the underlying damage—which Steve was pointedly ignoring—was much worse.

As they plugged down the hallway, Tony began to reconsider his own estimate that the arc was still working. He could still hear it humming slightly, but his legs were getting heavy and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

"Where's Fury?" he asked, sucking in a deep, silent breath after and almost immediately coughing it out.

Steve's response wasn't originally audible.

"What?"

Steve spat out a glob of blood. "They took him to another building," he said, still raspy, but much clearer.

"Which one?"

"Dunno. Wasn't conscious." He swiped his arm across his face, the once beautiful fabric of his suit coming away stained with blood.

"We'll have to search them all," Tony responded, hoping his tone belied his concern. The two of them were injured, hardly prepared to go into battle with the rest of the base.

They needed weapons, and a better plan.

"I have a better plan," Steve said, as if reading Tony's mind. He held up a hand for Tony to stop, stole the gun from his hand and burst into the small hallway to the left. There was a scuffle, then Tony heard Steve growl, "Where is Fury?"

Taking his chances, he peered around the corner to see Steve pinning a guard to the ground, one hand around his throat, the other driving the gun against his heart.

"I'd answer him," Tony said levelly, leaning against the wall like it was a power move instead of the fact his heart skipped a beat and his knees felt like jelly.

"East wing, room 103."

That was easy.

Steve knocked the man out, then rose shakily to his feet.

"Help me with his uniform," he said to Tony as he struggled out of his suit jacket.

* * *

Not long after, they were crossing the green space between the buildings, trying to look as casual as possible, when gunshots rang out. Steve grabbed Tony's arm and then they were running faster than Tony had ever run in his life. His feet were barely touching the ground. Steve, fully injured, was practically carrying him.

They were weaving around the trees separating the compound from the drop-off to the river below, when a bullet thunked into the tree beside them. Tony, who had been returning fire, ducked slightly, taking his eyes off the ground for a split second. Of course, that was exactly when his foot caught on a protruding rock and he slipped.

Time seemed to slow down and he was suspended in mid-air for what felt like minutes. He saw Steve hesitate and begin to turn as Tony's foot continued to slip, his body sliding back and toward the edge.

Steve's brief hesitation was enough. Tony heard a shot and red exploded from Steve's shoulder. Steve cried out as he doubled down, still in the process of trying to catch Tony's hand. The supersoldier missed once, twice, and unable to catch any solid ground for himself, Tony slid fully over the ledge.

It was only once he was fully suspended that he felt something grab his arm, jerking him to a stop. Steve was holding a root with one hand and Tony with the other. Blood was flowing down from his injured shoulder and onto Tony's hand, greasing their already tenuous grip. Steve slid his hand down further, trying to get a better hold on Tony's sleeve, which would provide some additional friction. Unfortunately, the ledge cut back right below where Steve was holding, which meant there was nothing for Tony to try to grab onto, to try to assume some of his weight.

He heard rapidly approaching footprints and looked up to see a barrel appear over the edge. He lifted his free right hand and fired, sending the goon collapsing over the edge, and into the river below with a splash.

That move cost him though. His heart was beating in earnest, trying to break through his ribs, and his breath was heaving. It felt like some of the shrapnel had shifted either in the original fall, or his most recent move.

"You have to let go," Tony said, as he began to lose his grip on consciousness. Plus, with Steve's injured shoulder, he probably wasn't going to be able to hold on for much longer. He could still save himself. "You can still save Fury. I'm almost out of juice here."

Steve looked down at him with pure panic in his eyes. "Not going to happen."

"Steve, it's okay," Tony said softly. "Let me go."

The root shifted and Steve groaned, readjusting his grip on both the root and Tony. Tony then heard a clunk followed by a truncated hiss from Steve. Tony made himself look up, to find Steve's shoulder hanging at an unnatural angle.

"Let me go, Steve," he said. "It's okay. Who knows? I might survive."

Steve shook his head. "Gonna throw you."

"What?"

"Up and over. Alleyoop," Steve grunted. "Don' fight it and 'll be okay."

"Steve."

"Don' fight it."

In an instant, he was moving, swinging Tony back. As they were coming back around, he released Tony. Unfortunately, the blood dripping down his body kept him from holding his grip as long as he needed to, and just before being parallel to the horizon, his hand slipped free, sending Tony flying toward the other crag.

Tony winced, preparing for the impending impact, when he was snatched out of the air.

He looked up to see his savior, finding a claw-shaped apparatus descending from a quinjet, with Clint looking out through the now open floor.

"HAWKEYE!" Tony bellowed, having never been so excited to see his teammate in his entire life.

"And Nat."

Small arms fired from the back of the quinjet at that moment, and when Tony turned to look, he saw two more guards who had been approaching fall to the ground. Then he looked down at Steve, who was struggling to pull himself over the edge of the cliff.

"Think we should give Cap a hand?"

The claw was already moving up, to pull Tony into the quinjet, before descending again, and closing around the shoulder holster Steve had picked up from the guard.

"You saved us," he told Tony, once he was back in the quinjet, as Clint began applying pressure to the wound in his shoulder.

"And I'll want that in writing one day," Tony said as he felt his heart skip another beat. He crawled to the side of the quinjet, and raised his hand to one of the panels, which scanned his palm, and then opened to reveal another arc.

He grabbed it, removed the duct tape from the one in his chest, and inserted the new one, feeling like he got kicked in the back as it made its final connection.

"You good?" Steve asked, to which Tony nodded. Then he looked at Clint. "Fury is in the East Building."

There was a thunk on the top of the quinjet, which had Steve and Tony reaching for whatever weapon was in reach. Clint however didn't seem alarmed, and the back of the quinjet opened a split second later to reveal Thor, in full gear, holding Fury by the back of his neck.

"Wasn't how I was hoping to get a ride like that, but I'll take it," Fury quipped as he dropped into an inset chair, one arm loosely sliding in along his ribs. "You two good?"

"As good as can be expected," Tony said, not having the energy for his usual witty banter.

While Steve parroted a derivation of the same, Clint turned without releasing Steve's shoulder and told Natasha to take them home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote. Thank you to everyone who joined me on this Febuwhump journey! I hope you had as much fun reading these prompts as I did writing them!
> 
> Until next time!


End file.
